


Attribute Nothing to Fate

by recreational



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Room With A View - Freeform, E.M. Forster - Freeform, Edwardian Period, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, M/M, Romance, historically accurate apart from that, perhaps a bit too much sex for that era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:03:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recreational/pseuds/recreational
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A journey to Italy calls up old desires, but John Watson, trapped by the social conventions of his time, is not prepared to give in to temptation and change his life forever. It takes someone else to do that for him. A homage to E.M. Forster’s ‘A Room with a View’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bertolini

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much, snogandagrope, for betaing the story, and CrackshotKate for the britpicking.

“You’re useless, John!” Harriet cried. “Even more useless than the captain who nearly rammed the Dover Cliffs or all the train drivers between the Channel and Florence. The entire continent has more courage than you, my dear brother.”

“Harriet, I…” With what he hoped was a charming smile, John tried to soften the critical looks of the people sitting at his table and braced himself for her next outburst which he was sure would follow. He was accustomed to being embarrassed by his sister in public but it never got any easier.

“You promised me a view on the Arno and for an entire year, we’ve joked about it and imagined it. We said we’d get up in the morning and stand on our balconies to greet the city. That’s what I want, John, and nothing else.”

The petulant tone cut through the room more effectively than the knives through the tough meat, and John prayed that his sister would start eating already. Afterwards he could try to talk the Signora, who was managing the pension, into giving Harriet a room with a view. He’d bribe her if it was necessary.

Scowling at the grey roast which had been cleverly hidden under an admittedly tasty sauce, he impaled a potato on his fork. Potatoes. Had he left England only to eat potatoes again? Looking at the pension’s interior, it was easy to come to the conclusion that he was still in England. Yet it had not been the portrait of the King, alongside a battery of English dignitaries, but the broad Cockney accent of the alleged ‘Signora’ which had shattered his last illusions.

“John! What do you intend to do?”

 _A very good question._ John closed his eyes and breathed in. Once, twice, and then he could force the smile that had escaped him in the meanwhile back on his face and look at his twenty-year-old sister with a mixture of benevolence and reproach.

“Harriet, that’s enough. We’ll finish our meal and afterwards I’ll try to talk with our landlady. Whatever she says, we had an agreement that our rooms would face the river. I hope –”

“You hope?” his sister shrieked and John saw some of the guests flinch. He was glad that from his seat he had only a partial view of the rest of the dining room. “We have to –”

“Harriet!”

The awkward silence after the last outburst showed John that he was now identified as the rude tourist who didn’t have any idea of how to behave abroad. He couldn’t even make his companion act civilly at table and like so many times before, John cursed his parents because they had nothing better to do than bringing another child into the world and dying afterwards. _God bless them._

Guiltily John flashed another smile at the other guests and added a frown for Harriet, whose countenance showed that she was about to commit another blunder.

“Harriet,” he hissed again, “listen to me. I’m going to try my best to make your wishes come true, trust me. When I cannot reach anything with the Signora, we’ll search for another pension tomorrow. What do you say?”

He gave her his most fatherly look, fully aware of the fact that he was being just as manipulative as his sister at that moment, but when her face lit up, he was convinced that it had been worth it.

“You’re such a dear,” his sister exclaimed, suddenly in a sunny mood. It became even more pronounced when the curtains to the room were opened and revealed a clergyman – and a remarkably attractive at that, John had to admit. The man quickly went to his seat at their table, apologised to everyone for his lateness, and John immediately wracked his brain why he seemed somewhat familiar. He was still searching his memory when Harriet jumped up to make an announcement.

“Oh, this is fantastic! John, now we have to stay!”

The clergyman looked up from his plate and then John recognised him as well. With more tact than his sister, he nodded in the direction of the newly arrived guest and even managed to come up with his name quickly enough to greet him.

“How are you, Mr Lestrade? You might have forgotten about us, we met briefly when you helped out the vicar of St Peter. Tunbridge Wells, it was very cold that Easter. What a coincidence to meet you here. John Watson. And this is my sister Harriet.”

Mr Lestrade obviously did not remember them at all but after a moment he managed to gloss over that fact with acquired ease.

“Mr Watson, Miss –”

“I’m so happy to see you,” Harriet burst out. “How small the world is. And now Summer Street –”

“We live in the parish of Summer Street,” John interjected because he thought to have seen a slightly bewildered frown on Mr Lestrade’s face.

“… Charlotte said last week. Now what are the odds?” Harriet continued unblinkingly.

“That is correct,” confirmed the clergyman, who seemed to be able to adapt to the erratic way the conversation proceeded, John noted with some amusement. “Next May I’ll become rector there, and let me assure you that I’m honoured to live in such a charming neighbourhood.”

“Oh, I’m delighted! Our house is called Windy Corner.”

Mr Lestrade bowed in the face of so much youthful enthusiasm.

“You’re going to love it, Mr Lestrade. There’s John and me, and Aunt Charlotte of course, but we manage to get her to church only… I mean, the church is rather far away.”

“Harriet, please let Mr Lestrade eat.” John tried to come to the clergyman’s rescue but he just smiled in return.

“Don’t worry, Mr Watson, I can eat and be engaged in an entertaining conversation at the same time. Do you know Florence, Miss Watson?”

This was the prelude to a lecture about every detail of the city, at least John presumed that it was. During the details of the cathedral’s statues he excused himself, but although he would have had to see the landlady – because now that Harriet wanted to stay, the room problem was all the more pressing – he took a little detour to the smoking room.

Rather disinclined to smoke, he just stood next to the door, thankful for having escaped the excited chattering of the dining room for a brief moment.

“Younger siblings can be a serious pain in the neck, can’t they?”

Bewildered, John turned to his side only to raise his head. Next to him, a tall stranger had manifested, who was surely a couple of years older than John. Well-groomed but not overly so, he graced him with a small smile that almost looked genuinely inviting, though this did not reduce John’s irritation with regard to the missing formalities.

“And I have the honour of whom exactly?”

“Mycroft Holmes. Call me Mycroft.” The smile became more pronounced, accompanied by an outstretched hand – and John couldn’t do anything but take it.

“John Watson.”

“Pleased to meet you, John.”

“Likewise.” He managed a pained grin. Jovial Englishmen could be a real nuisance abroad, he had already experienced his fair share during the train ride. At least he was not confined to a carriage anymore, so he could flee the scene if necessary.

“You see, I’m also burdened with such a hell spawn. Not that I don’t think him to be the apple of my eye, but now and then I’d prefer to chase him through town with a cane. You know what I mean…”

John breathed in deeply, trying to control his urge to wholeheartedly agree with his new acquaintance.

“But there’s an easy solution to your problem.” Mycroft Holmes enjoyed another deep drag on his cigarette and John’s curiosity got the better of him as the man sparked diffuse hope in him. “My brother and I have rooms facing the river. And if there are two people in the world who don’t value a view, it’s us. Especially Sherlock.”

“And…?”

“Your sister and you will of course move into our rooms. Numbers 34 and 35, by the way.”

Automatically John raised his hands in refusal. “Absolutely not.” He shook his head. “We couldn’t possibly –“

“Why?” the other man maintained. “Your sister wants a view and we don’t care.” He grumbled something unintelligible and then searched the room with his eyes. “Sherlock, convince that man!” he shouted suddenly.

From a group of men, the tallest among them stepped back. He turned around and then seemed to need a moment to decide if he really wanted to do what his brother had asked him to. John was immensely thankful for the hesitation because it gave him the chance to try to get himself under control, and then eventually accept defeat when he couldn’t stop staring unabashedly.

The age difference between the brothers was surely not as pronounced as between himself and Harriet, but John was convinced that similar to Harriet, who could always cancel out social lapses with the help of her beauty, also the younger Holmes would be able to achieve that in a heartbeat.

He had taken off his jacket, and even in a rather wide shirt and braces, John knew that he was the most attractive man he had ever seen in his life. Nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful.

Every step Sherlock Holmes took in his direction made John feel as if he was shrinking inwardly and he tried to  counteract the feeling by straightening and squaring his shoulders. He blinked, interrupting the unflinching stare at the approaching man at last, but only when he felt his usual routines taking over did John relax a little. They would steer him through another situation threatening to ruin his life forever.

“Sherlock, this is…”

“John, I know. It’s impossible to miss your voice, Mycroft. Just like your sister’s,” he added and held out his hand. Eager to get over with any kind of physical contact as quickly as possible, John shook it as briefly as he could and then snatched it back.

“Your brother’s offer is very –”

“It’s obvious that you have to take our rooms,” Sherlock Holmes interrupted him. “There’s nothing else to say.”

John couldn’t decipher the mixture of expectation and scepticism he now met in the other man’s face. _That perfect face._

“Or is there?” the younger Holmes asked and looked at him so penetratingly that John’s bewilderment soared even higher until a cough ripped him from his stupor.

“Sherlock,” the older brother said reproachfully. “John should decide for himself if he wants to take the rooms. It would be foolish not to do it but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t got a choice.”

“No, I… I don’t think…” John did not know exactly which question he was supposed to answer at that moment and he felt caught between two forces of nature that were beyond his control. “I…” Where was his voice? “Thank you very much for your kind offer, my sister and I accept it with pleasure.”

At least he had stuck to formalities if he could not save his face, and slightly nervous he tried to signal the end of this strange episode with a smile. Sherlock Holmes’ look became a little less piercing but contrary to John’s expectations, he did not turn away immediately. Instead, he fixed him with his gaze once more, as if he was coming to some kind of final assessment.

“The view from number 34 is the best,” he said before he abruptly returned to the group he had left.

“I, erm, thank you,” John stuttered to no one in particular. He threw Mycroft Holmes a helpless look but got a shrug in return.

“My brother is a strange man,” he said and hesitated before he continued. “He has the gift – if it is one –to always say what he thinks. Interesting but tiring as well. Maybe with you it would be different, but he and I disagree on almost everything. But it’s not just me. Tact and rules of conduct are completely alien to him, at home and in foreign countries. A cause for conflict wherever we go.”

His smile became a grimace and John imagined himself looking exactly the same in the dining room just a couple of minutes ago.

“I’ll tell the Signora to prepare the rooms in half an hour.”

“Thank you… Mycroft. My sister will be immensely pleased.”

The elder Holmes managed a laugh and then John had to suppress a cough because he was rather violently patted on the back. Just as brutally, the man dragged his brother from the group, but he seemed to be used to such a treatment and just freed himself with a jerk to leave the room one step ahead of the older sibling.

Astonished by the sheer amount of misguided familiarity he had just encountered, John returned to the dining room in which a storm of information had swept away Harriet in the meanwhile. Upon John’s arrival, it was still going on and Mr Lestrade seemed to be keen on challenging the old gentleman at the end of the table, who had adopted a rather dominating attitude and was talking to Harriet animatedly.

“Don’t neglect the countryside,” the clergyman commanded. “On the first beautiful afternoon you should drive to Fiesole, or pass Settignano, something of that sort.”

“No,” boomed the surprisingly loud voice of the old man. “That’s not right, Mr Lestrade. On the first beautiful afternoon the young lady should see Prato.”

The armada of white-haired old women around him agreed with him instantly and Harriet’s elated face showed John how much she enjoyed being the centre of attention. He sat down at the table again and waited patiently until essential details about the bothersome beggars, the trams or the beauty of the city as such had been dealt with simultaneously and noisily above all.

“Harriet, I’ve got good news,” he hastened to say when the voices had died down for a moment.

“Oh John, have you heard what we can –”

“We’ve got new rooms,” John interrupted her, because although they had not unpacked yet, they should collect the few things they had got out of their baggage before dinner.

“Really? How wonderful! Have you heard that, Mr Lestrade?”

“Has the Signora relented?” the clergyman asked.

“I wasn’t necessary to talk to her. Two other guests, brothers, exchanged their rooms with us,” John replied.

“You’re talking about the Holmeses if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes, you know them?” John asked.

“Well, as one gets to know each other in pensions,” Mr Lestrade said carefully. “The brothers are peculiar, to put it that way. Unconventional. Quite possibly socialists.”

John raised an eyebrow but decided that it was neither the time nor the place to discuss politics with the clergyman.

“We should go to our rooms,” he said to Harry. “Our luggage has to be ready in a couple of minutes so that the Signora can have a look at them. Your room number is 34, I hope you have –”

“In a couple of minutes?” His sister jumped up and stormed out of the room without bidding anyone goodbye. Obviously she had unpacked a bit more, John thought to himself, and excused them both from Mr Lestrade.

Slowly he climbed up the stairs. He had just put on a new shirt and thrown the old one on his bed – there was nothing else to pack in his room. So he closed the latches of his trunk quicker than he would have preferred and eyed the monstrous box warily. Now he had to carry it up another floor.

Cursing every step, he reached the third floor and if the hallway before him bore any likeness to the one he had just left, room number 35 would be at the end of it. John took a deep breath and marched on, anticipating the liberating feeling of getting rid of his burden, and with newfound vigour, he rushed through the cracked door – just to run into Sherlock Holmes.

“I’m sorry, John,” the man said but pushed him to the side to pass him.

“It’s… it doesn’t matter, don’t worry.”

Still taken aback by the fact that it was the younger brother and not Mycroft Holmes he encountered, John remained where he was, only some steps away from the door. Nervously he glanced at the man who also didn’t feel any inclination to move, waiting in the doorway instead.

John looked down and studied the tiles. This was his room now, so he could close the door, but the generosity of the other man prohibited such rudeness. Yet it was also impossible to be subjected to such a scrutinising look. _That_ was tactless.

“Can I help you? Have you forgotten anything?” he asked but still focused on the neat joints at his feet.

“Not necessarily.”

The strange answer made John raise his head after all. “I’m sorry? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know if it is really in the room,” Sherlock Holmes said quietly as if he was contemplating this problem.

“How? Well…” Unsure what to do or what to say, John started gesticulating but also his hands could not form any kind of sense.

“Good night, John.”

He disappeared like the last time, not waiting for an answer. Just turned on his heels and then all John heard were the quick footsteps in the hallway.

John closed the door and tried to make sense of what had happened. What did those mysterious allusions mean? Did they mean anything? It was possible that Sherlock Holmes was making sport of him after all.

 _My blasted friendliness! It wouldn’t be the first time for me to fall victim to intellectual hotspurs,_ John thought. His school years and the much too short time at Oxford had been telling enough, yet from experience he knew that ignoring the source of such nonsense was the best way to stop it.

John opened the window and breathed in the clear night’s air, eager to get the man who had made it possible for him to see the dancing lights on the Arno out of his head. The Appenines a black canvas before the rising moon, the cypresses like pencils framing San Miniato – glorious details wanting to be admired but whatever he did, he couldn’t prevent having Sherlock Holmes burned into his mind alongside them.

 

 

 


	2. Santa Croce

John rolled over, trying to escape the rays of the morning sun filtering through the shutters, but something was scratching his temple, most likely a feather in the pillow the Signora had advertised as being filled with down. John surrendered. Perhaps it would be nice to get up instead of sleeping in, he was in Florence after all.

He climbed out of bed, his bare feet stepping on red tiles that looked clean but were not, pinched his fingers in the unknown hinges of the shutters afterwards, but everything became irrelevant the moment he leaned out of the window, sunshine in his face, and hills, trees and marble churches in his view. Below him, the Arno gurgled the background melody to the busy life already stirring at its banks.

It was a barely comprehensible confusion of soldiers, oxen and the tram – all of which would never make it into an official travel book – yet seeing the people living their lives in the streets without a care moved him more than any comparable scene in an English town.

 _It has to be the sun,_ he contemplated. Every Englishman would possibly become slightly sentimental if there was that amount of light at home.

Shaking his head at those thoughts, he stepped back into the room and rang for hot water. His face looked like he was one of the porters who had brutally hoisted their baggage into the carriage. After shaving and getting dressed he planned to pick up Harriet to have breakfast with her, yet when he arrived in front of her room some time later, he doubted that she was even awake.

“Harriet?” He knocked and was answered by some unintelligible murmuring. Another knock and the door opened at last, revealing the sleepy face of his sister.

“I can wait for you if you need time to get prepared for breakfast,” he said because he was afraid that wishing her good morning would sound as if he was teasing her.

“Breakfast,” she groaned. “Oh God, not now.”

“It’s almost nine o’clock.”

“John, I’m not feeling well today. Yesterday’s journey was a bit too much for me after all.”

She turned around and John quickly followed her inside the room to close the door because his sister was already casually letting her dressing gown drop on the floor.

“Leave me alone, John,” she said and clambered into her bed. “I want to sleep.”

John picked up the garment from the floor and placed it over a chair. “I’ll tell the Signora to bring you something to eat,” he suggested, “then I’ll keep you company, what about that?”

“Don’t get me wrong, but I’m not in the mood to be mothered by you.” She pulled the quilt over her head, putting an end to every attempt at a conversation.

John sighed and left the room. So it was him and his guide book that day. It had been a good idea to pocket it before he left his room, he thought when he was walking downstairs. And a quiet day without Harriet’s incessant chattering? An unusual but very promising outlook, John admitted to himself, and to his relief, the dining room was devoid of any people whose acquaintance he had already made. _Even the Holmes brothers aren’t here,_ flitted through his mind.

“Mr Watson!”

John flinched. Behind him, the old gentleman from the previous evening had entered the room and immediately steered them both towards their table. “We haven’t been introduced properly, I’m afraid. Lavish, Charles Lavish.”

“John Watson, it’s a –”

“Now, Mr Watson, sit, sit, I beg you.” He manoeuvred John to a chair and sat down next to him. “Where’s your charming sister, if I may ask you that?”

“She’s not feeling well, I’m afraid,” John answered and when he saw that Mr Lavish wanted to interject, he added, “but it’s just a bit of exhaustion after the long journey.”

“Oh, does that mean that you will be visiting the city alone today?”

John nodded, slightly bewildered by the whimsical smile the man now directed at him. Yet it took until the end of their breakfast for Mr Lavish to come out with his plan.

“Now Mr Watson,” he started when John was about to finish his tea, “I wanted to see Santa Croce today, so if you’re interested in joining me, I’d be pleased to be your guide.”

“Thank you for the offer, I…” John fished the guide book out of his jacket and scanned the description of the church. “That sounds very interesting, I’d really like to –”

“Quick, danger is approaching,” Mr Lavish hissed and jumped up, making the dishes rattle. He marched to the exit so quickly that John could barely follow him.

“Good morning, my lovely ladies.”

“Mr Lavish, Mr Watson,” chirped one of the women. “Where –”

“I’m dreadfully sorry, we’re in quite a hurry. Have a nice day.”

John was still nodding his goodbye when the old man had already left the pension, and a short detour to the landlady to instruct her about Harriet’s breakfast saw him running down the street in an obstacle course to catch up again.

“Very friendly, those Lady Alans,” Mr Lavish said when John had reached him. “But there has to be a little room for adventure.”

A man of his age would not undertake anything too life threatening, John presumed and did not enquire any further about his plans. The following walk along the Arno made his last fears disappear and Mr Lavish was true to his word, talking about their surroundings without seeing the need to breathe in between. At the beginning, John tried to listen to his companion attentively, but as the morning wore on, his thoughts started to stray and it was not important anymore what the men on the boats were doing and why. Instead John let himself be warmed by the mild air and searched for the impressions that he had already encountered earlier.

A tall, young man, dark curls – and there they were again. Not the pleasant feelings accompanying his morning view, though, but the unbidden images that had followed him to his dreams. He cursed the high cheekbones of the newsman and the workman’s slender hips in dirty trousers, but it appeared that everywhere he looked he encountered reminiscences of the previous evening.

“The wind’s a bit chilly, don’t you think?”

Before John could react, Mr Lavish crossed the Ponte alle Grazie – _it was mentioned by Dante, you remember that, Mr Watson, don’t you?_ – passed San Miniato and was giving another excited lecture when he suddenly stopped.

“Do you smell that?”

Bewildered John breathed in. “Not exactly pleasant, is it?”

“Not pleasant?” Mr Lavish cried. “You don’t come to Italy for it to be pleasant. You come here to live!” He waved at a coachman. “Buon giorno!”

John now seriously considered returning to the pension but Mr Lavish grabbed his sleeve.

“Listen to me, you should always keep an open mind for the lower classes.”

“Don’t worry,” John calmed him down, thankful for the new topic. “I may be from Surrey but apart from the time of his unfortunate Ireland policy, my family has always voted for Gladstone.”

“Oh, a true radical,” the old man exclaimed happily. “And Surrey? I have an acquaintance… Wait a moment, do you know what has happened? We’ve lost our way!”

John reached into his pocket to get out his guide book but his companion snatched it from his hand as soon as he saw it.

“Haven’t you understood? An adventure! We will be drifting, just like that, in defiance of the Conservatives who can rant and rave about our missing sense of purpose as much as they like.”

The borough they were walking through was not exactly charming, though, and on top of that, Mr Lavish forced him to eat a typical Italian chestnut paste that tasted suspiciously of wrapping paper.

The more their path led through nondescript alleys, the less John could fight a feeling of indignation. In the morning he had believed to have gotten a glimpse at something like the Italy of his dreams and now there was nothing but flaking paint and screaming children – until the other man and he arrived at yet another dusty square and Mr Lavish burst out in spontaneous praise.

Santa Croce. John tuned out the old man’s words and observed the ugly façade. If he had his guide book, he might be able to understand what was supposed to be beautiful about the building but John doubted that even this would do the trick.

“Wait here, I have to talk to that man over there. He supplies me with my colours,” he heard Mr Lavish say before he disappeared, surprisingly light-footed for a man of his age. For some minutes John remained where he was, ignoring beggars and the dust, but then he steered towards the church, mentally bidding his companion good riddance.

 _Cold. More like a barn than a church,_ was all that came to John’s mind when he entered. There had to be Giotto’s frescos somewhere inside of it but John could not recall the descriptions – the glimpse at his guide book had been too brief. Damned Lavish, he could at least have given him back his book! Now the long walk to this gem of human creativity had been futile as he neither knew _what_ he was supposed to admire nor _why_.

 _Yet Harriet isn’t with me and I don’t have to be thirsting for education,_ John told himself and was immediately ashamed of the relief coursing through him. Despite this initial feeling, he let his eyes roam, read the signs that forbid people to take dogs along or spit – until directly in front of his feet, a small boy fell over the statue of a bishop. John tried to catch him but failed, and the child landed on the cold floor, starting to sniffle immediately after the impact.

“Dreadful bishop,” a voice boomed behind John. “Hard in life and hard in death. Go outside and play, young man, out of this dark vault!”

The child screamed even louder and John observed Mycroft Holmes’ attempts to make the young Italian stand on his two feet again.

“Look at him, John,” he said. “A child, hurt, cold and afraid. You expect nothing else of a church.”

An old woman, who had been praying until then, came to his rescue and set the child on his feet, an action that elicited great enthusiasm in Mycroft Holmes.

“What a wise woman,” he declared. “She’s done more for mankind than all relics in the world. I’m not a Catholic but I believe in those who make their fellow beings happy. Nothing is…”

He searched for a word.

“Niente,” said the Italian woman and went back to her prayers.

“I think she doesn’t understand English,” John assumed and the elder Holmes seemed to rouse from his thoughts.

“She understands me, I’m quite sure of that. But what are you doing here, dear friend? Have you already seen the church?”

John sighed. “Mr Lavish wanted to show me around, before he met someone in the church square, that is. Since then I haven’t seen him and he’s even got my guide book.”

“Oh, your guide book! Heaven forbid. This is a reason to be worried,” Mycroft said and raised an eyebrow.

“If you don’t have a guide book, you should join us,” John heard the distinct voice say but he did not dare to turn around. _Of course_ he _would be there too._

“Thank you. I don’t want to intrude,” he replied towards the elder brother. “You were kind enough to exchange rooms with my sister and I, hopefully this didn’t cause too much –”

“John,” Mycroft interrupted him. “Do me a favour and throw those stuffy manners overboard, they’re tiring. It is very easy: Tell me what you want to see and I’ll take you there.”

How was he supposed to reject that offer? John breathed in deeply and did not take his eyes off the elder brother. “Giotto’s frescos. Do you know where they are?

“This way.” Again that voice and Mycroft nodded in the direction it had come from.

 _Church. And art,_ John repeated inwardly before he turned around. Somewhat more reserved than last night Sherlock Holmes glanced at him and then the younger man led them through the church and towards a little chapel that was already occupied by a group of people. They listened to a lecturer, a clergyman – that much John could see from his position.

“Consider,” the man said, “that the church breathes the spirit of the middle ages, built by the power of faith before the Renaissance destroyed such fervour. Look at Giotto’s frescos! Could anything appeal to one’s senses more perfectly?”

“Wrong,” Sherlock Holmes growled, much too loud for the interior a church. “You shouldn’t consider any of that. Built by faith!” He snorted derisively. “That means that the workers weren’t paid properly, nothing else. And the frescos? I don’t see any truth in them. The fat man in blue weighs twice as much as I and he shoots through the air like a balloon.”

He pointed at the fresco of the ascension of St John and had he not sympathised with the embarrassment of the lecturer and his group so much, John would have had problems suppressing the snicker that wanted to burst forth.

“Did it happen that way? What do you think?” Sherlock asked him suddenly and John froze.

“I… I don’t know,” he stuttered. The other man’s penetrating gaze was most efficient at scrambling John’s thoughts. “Whether or not it happened like that, it would be nice if the ones that are dear to us wait up there, just like Giotto painted it.”

John saw the grey eyes narrow to slits.

“You and I, John, we will never go up there,” Sherlock said in a scathing tone. “You and I will lie in the earth that brought us forth, and our names will vanish as surely as our deeds will prevail.” He leaned towards John. “That is, if we dare to act at all.”

John felt like he was faltering and at the same time something incredibly hot trickled through his system. What Giotto would have never been able to elicit, the man staring at him could create with just a look and his words. For a moment it all vanished, the chapel, the tourist party, everything. He was alone with Sherlock Holmes, caught up in the glow of those pale eyes – until a cough woke him from his trance.

“Excuse us,” a cold voice said. “The chapel is too small for two groups. We’re not going to trouble you any longer.”

John blinked and saw the group, among them the two ladies Mr Lavish had successfully avoided in the morning, follow their leader dutifully.

“Stop!” Sherlock Holmes exclaimed. “There’s enough space for everyone.”

He wanted to follow the group but his brother held him back.

“Sherlock, I think that was the vicar of Brixton. Yes, Mr Eager, that was his name.”

Somewhat abashed, Mycroft looked around and then straightened again. “I have to say sorry, wait here.”

“There’s no need…” his younger brother started but Mycroft was already on his way to the neighbouring chapel from which the voice of the insulted clergyman could be heard.

“He’ll try to be friendly,” Sherlock said dejectedly.

“I hope we all try that,” John replied, anxious to sharpen his wits again despite the other man’s bewildering statements.

“We are civil because we think it improves our character,” Sherlock hissed. “Mycroft is friendly because he genuinely wants to do good. He loves people and when they realise that, they’re hurt or scared out of their wits.”

“That’s nonsense. Acting tactfully –”

“Tact!”

John was convinced that he had given the wrong answer as agitatedly as Sherlock Holmes now started pacing the chapel. In the light of the windows, he looked hard, chiselled and almost cold, and John wondered how someone so young could possess so much tragedy in his countenance – even if it were only the shadows cast by the windows creating that impression.

Hypnotised, John remained rooted to the spot, his eyes glued to the conflicting expressions on the man’s face. He could not even tear his eyes away when Sherlock approached him quickly and John automatically stepped backwards. Only when he felt the cold wall of the building at his back did he realise that all his usual reactions to such intrusive behaviour had failed.

“Why don’t things fit, John?”

For decades he had not been in such immediate proximity to a man and never had he encountered such staggering sensuality. John fought for the authority of his body but it just did not want to obey.

“Which things?” he breathed.

“The universe, everything. It’s true. Nothing fits.”

Did he expect an answer? John felt panic stirring up, increased a hundredfold by the fact that any second someone could enter the chapel. “What do you mean?” he asked desperately.

“There’s just the perpetual ‘why’, John. No ‘yes’, no matter how fleeting.”

The pulse throbbing in his temples, John’s body got ready to flee. He was in a church. A Catholic church! Whatever the other man wanted to say, the only ‘why’ coming to John’s mind was the question why Sherlock found it necessary to stage such a compromising and dangerous act in a place like this.

“I don’t understand you,” he retorted and managed to step to the side at last. “But how could I, as you seem to be ready to overstep every boundary of civil conduct. We’re too different, I guess.”

To lend weight to his words, John glowered at his opponent and was surprised to meet the same expression.

“Are we really?”

John opened his mouth but was not able to utter a single syllable because Sherlock turned around abruptly and marched out of the chapel. Still speechless, John stared after him, hearing steps approaching before Mycroft Holmes returned slightly breathlessly.

“Oh no, John, don’t tell me he has managed to antagonise you as well!”

With some effort John schooled his face into something other than angry bewilderment but he knew that his smile would not convince the considerate man.

“Whatever he did, I hope you won’t take offence.” Mycroft sighed. “That’s what he is. He challenges people. Too much free thinking paired with a great intellect. Not enough superstition.” He looked around. “Did he tell you where he would be going?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“But I know where we will go now,” Mycroft announced energetically. “After so much Catholicism there’s just one solution: We return to the pension and I show you what I have managed to store since our departure from England.

“Which would be?”

“Scotch. Exactly the thing we need now.”


	3. In the Alley

After arriving at the pension, John first went to his sister’s room, but she just looked up from her book long enough to enquire if he had brought her anything. He refrained from offering her the rest of the chestnut paste and suggested asking the landlady for a piece of cake instead. Harriet’s vigorous nod convinced him that this had been the right decision.

“I hope tomorrow you’ll be fine again,” he said when he turned to go.

“I have to. I cannot let you roam a strange city on your own. Who knows who you will fall prey to without me.”

John stopped, his fingers already closing around the door handle. If he looked at her now, Harriet would know that something had happened during his absence. _Yet had anything happened at all?_

“Don’t worry,” he replied quickly. “I can watch out for myself. Before I go to sleep, I’ll look in on you and bid you goodnight.”

Without turning back again, John left the room and closed the door. Relieved to have escaped by a hair’s breadth, he breathed in deeply. One of Harriet’s insistent questionings would mean another thread in the already complex web of lies that he had been expanding for years. _Why don’t you have a wife, John?_ she had already asked him when she was a child and until a couple of years ago, his explanation had been enough.

_You’re the only important woman in my life._

_And Aunt Charlotte?_ she had always replied playfully and, forgetting the initial question, they had engaged in a banter about men daring to come within three feet of Charlotte, and the poor sods’ certain demise.

He had avoided getting too close to anybody. Not that he would have had any chance in rural Surrey. _Just the thought!_ He had so many years of practice in overlooking all signs of alluring masculinity that a beautifully pale appearance with dark curls and… _blast,_ he cursed inwardly _, hopefully Sherlock Holmes was still somewhere in the city._

When he arrived in the parlour, it was empty save for the elder brother. They sat together, revelling in a moment of amicable silence, but were soon joined by Mr Lestrade, whose eyes had been drawn to the golden liquid in the glasses almost magnetically.

John relaxed in his chair. Mycroft Holmes had been right, alcohol could really work wonders, and in the course of the second glass, his tension started to dissolve. Determined to see the events of the day as a succession of misunderstandings, he enjoyed the pleasant burn of the whisky and even the Miss Alans, who peeked into the parlour just to turn on their heels immediately, could not deter him. Misunderstandings, nothing more, he thought to himself. All parties involved had simply overreacted.

“Oh, John, there you are.” Mr Lavish entered the room, searching it with his eyes. “Have you seen my cigarette case?”

All men present shook their heads and the old man vanished again.

“A strange fellow,” John said. “Leaving me like that, taking away my guide book, and now he acts as if nothing has happened at all.”

Mycroft Holmes laughed out loud. “Oh yes, who would have thought it possible? A seventy-eight-year-old stole your book.”

John clenched his teeth but grudgingly had to accept the fact that he could not take offence with the elder Holmes. “He told me I should be ‘drifting’ and spouted all kinds of nonsense about life and the Italians,” John explained. “He greeted everybody who crossed our path. Very embarrassing, all of it, perhaps I was caught unawares because of that.”

“This sounds like a rather forced adapting to this country’s culture, that’s true. And no matter how much we try, could we succeed at all? They’re strange, these Italians.” Mr Lestrade sighed. “In Modena I was taking a bath when the chambermaid barged in and simply remarked ‘it doesn’t matter, I’m old’, and then changed the towels. There is no privacy.”

John had just been about to sip his scotch and sputtered helplessly whereas Mycroft Holmes pressed his hand on his mouth to refrain from bursting out with laughter. Mr Lestrade, in turn, observed the pictures on the wall opposite him and continued drinking his whisky completely unperturbed. John was sure that he had deliberately told the story at that instant – a witty clergyman, he mused. Not unsympathetic at all.

“Although the issue of privacy is of course the most deplorable aspect, I also see other difficulties,” Mr Lestrade pointed out. “Not only do they hear and see everything, they also know it before we do. We’re in their hands, so to say. The coachman, the artist, no matter which century, they read our thoughts and show us our desires. It’s unsettling. Oh, what’s that?”

While he was lecturing the others with his peculiar monologue, Mr Lestrade had been shuffling in his chair, only to extract a metal case from underneath himself at some time. “C.L., this has to be Mr Lavish’s.”

“He really shouldn’t smoke that much at his age,” John remarked and Mycroft Holmes nodded.

“You’re surely right,” Mr Lestrade replied, “but an unfortunate accident destroyed his life’s work – a rather mediocre novel, they say – and now he tries to find the inspiration for a new book. Without much success till now.”

“Your knowledge about the guests in this pension is endless, Mr Lestrade,” remarked the elder Holmes. “What people say about my brother and I is clear, though. Why do you bother with us at all?”

“I’m of the opinion that one shouldn’t rely on hearsay and, what is more important, it’s my duty as a shepherd to keep an eye on stray sheep. We’ll go on a trip together with guests of this pension before you know it.”

The clergyman looked almost grimly convinced and John admired him for his courage. After the incident in the church there was most likely no one who would volunteer to sit in a carriage together with Sherlock Holmes – the Miss Alans would take care of that.

And somehow John could not shake the impression that his thoughts had crept through the pension and slithered under the door to pull the young man down to the parlour, because there he was – appearing out of nowhere and passing them without saying a word. He sat down on the bench, opened the piano and before John could comprehend who was in the room with him, he began to play.

 _Beethoven_.

John compressed his lips. He hated it when Harriet played Beethoven. She always used the opportunity to imitate grand emotions with a lot of dramatics, and all of it just to defy him. _You have to be less standoffish,_ she teased him at every official event. As if he had a choice!

Keeping a distance. No dancing. Not answering a look with more than a friendly nod. As little alcohol as possible. This was the only way.

A situation like the lucky escape from exposure at school was not allowed to happen again. Nothing would make him dishonour his family, that much he had sworn, and after his parents’ death, Harriet’s wellbeing and her impeccable reputation had been most important. Finding a suitable husband who could handle her volatile temper would be difficult enough.

John fastened his eyes on his glass and tried to let the music pass by. Sonata number 3... But why just the Adagio? Surely not for the great pose Harriet loved so much. The short moment he had seen him playing, there had been no movement of the body whatsoever apart from the hands – yet there was no need for it anyway.

The music was enough and it said everything John had thought to see in the church. Desperately, he clutched the glass like a lifeline, the shaking of his hand stirring the glittering liquid whereas his knuckles were already turning white from exertion. He attempted to keep his mind closed off, shut out the increasing intensity of the playing that was hammering into his mind. Somehow he had to withstand the urge to do, to _act_ , and shatter the glass on the wall!

“He lives in hell.”

John gave a start and turned to Mycroft, who was looking at his brother with almost painful sympathy.

“I blame myself. A free education. No restriction by faith.” He leaned towards John and looked at him pleadingly. “You’re not so much older than him. Do you understand him?”

“I don’t know,” John answered evasively. What he had thought to see in the church and hear during the piano playing was just his own fantasy, he decided. “He’s young and healthy, he’ll find his way,” he added and was immediately embarrassed by such a truism. Mycroft Holmes’ face may have also shown some disappointment but before John could be sure, the usual small smile appeared again.

“If he ever starts living the way he’s playing, it’s going to be very interesting. Too interesting perhaps – for him and for everyone else,” he said and if on cue, his brother stopped and left the room.

At a loss what to do, John downed the rest of the alcohol and Mycroft did the same, yet his mood, in contrast to John’s, seemed to improve afterwards.

“What do you think about a round of cards?” he asked. Mr Lestrade’s face lit up whereas John became acutely aware of the alcohol coursing through his system, and the prospect of being confined to the pension, reckoning with another sudden appearance of the younger Holmes, was unbearable. He had to get out.

“If you excuse me,” he said and stood up before one of the others could object. “I’ll go for a stroll and maybe take the tram for a little ride. Then I can tell my sister some diverting stories on my return.”

Hectically he left the pension and on his arrival in the street, he realised with great relief that activity had decreased significantly in the early evening. The voices appeared to be less loud, the beggars less intrusive, and so if he hurried, he could reach Alinari before they closed to buy some pictures for his sister. _Perhaps they have some of the ascension of St John,_ flitted through his mind and he could not suppress an amused snort. If someone found the blunt statements of the younger Holmes entertaining, it would be Harriet. Apart from that, though, everything had ceased to be amusing for quite some time now.

 _Such a sodding dreadful confusion!_ John swore in his head. What exactly did the man want to prove by provoking him that in that manner? It almost seemed as if he was able to see through him.

Which was not the case. Must not be the case! Even contemplating that possibility was too dangerous, John thought worriedly. The law, social ruin – he could never do something like that to Harriet. Her own brother found guilty of sodomy?

Breathing in deeply to calm himself down, he deliberated what had happened. Whatever Sherlock Holmes intended, his utterances and actions were so vague that no direct danger resulted from them. _I’ve done nothing wrong,_ John confirmed his conviction inwardly. And at that moment, alone in the city and liberated from the observation of the guests and free from other constraints, he should do what he wanted for a change.

But was he really alone? John glanced around and got the impression that someone’s shadow was vanishing in an entrance. Spontaneously, he turned into a narrow alley that was not illuminated by the evening sun anymore. There was just one who would subject him to such a perfidious game and when he heard the steps of a second person echoing in the street, John felt anger bubbling up.

He had to end this. If his patience was tested to such a degree that he said something rash on the spur of the moment, disaster was looming. Instead, he had to act now, and frantically, he searched for a solution. The location was perfect, no one would see them, so he reduced his speed to decrease the distance between himself and his pursuer. Around the next corner, he would wait for Sherlock to confront him.

 _And what am I going to tell him without giving anything away myself?_ John still had not come to a conclusion when he approached a sharp turn of the alley which forced him to carry his plan into effect immediately. He stopped and then nervously stared at the brick wall Sherlock Holmes would walk around any second. A strangely clad sleeve, a shoulder – and before John had realised that it was a local who had been following him, a knife appeared in front of his face.  

“Moneta,” the man hissed but John was too flabbergasted by the sudden turn of events. Rooted to the spot, he remained completely immobile until the mugger raised the knife a bit more, making it unmistakeably clear that he expected a speedy reaction.

“Moneta?” John asked as if he had to prompt himself. It worked to a degree and he clumsily unbuttoned his jacket to get out the small bundle of notes he had taken with him.

“Prego,” John said, but the robber just ripped the money from his hand and then sped down the street as quickly as possible.

 _It was a simple mugging, nothing else,_ John reassured himself, feeling the fear that had petrified him before making his legs buckle regardless. Exhausted, he leaned against a nailed up door and hoped to collect his wits before returning to the pension.

“An almost perfect gentleman.”

John closed his eyes and heard his teeth grinding. Had the evening not already demanded  enough of him?

“You could have thanked him on top of all.”

Sherlock was near. The voice betrayed it. John breathed in and smelled the unfamiliar aftershave permeating the mild air. He had to do something. The resolve he had felt before was still somewhere in him and he could find it if he tried. With all the strength he could muster, John recalled the frustration of the previous days to give a convincing portrayal of what he was about to do.

“Did you enjoy it?” he asked and opened his eyes to glare at the other man.

“Every moment, yes.”

 _That mouth. Even when jeering it was incomparable,_ John thought but then shook himself from his reverie.

“I suppose the view of the Carabinieri removing my body would have equally amused you,” John tried to distract himself yet his view stayed fixed on those lips that formed an almost smile now.

“Oh no, something like that would never happen. This is a civilised country and there are certain rituals that always follow the same patterns. If all of a sudden, dead Englishmen were lining the streets, it would result in the ruin of professional mugging. Who in his right mind would still come here as a tourist?”

Just like the lacking flight characteristics of the saint, also this phenomenon was written off with a completely logical explanation, and again John could barely suppress a twitching of his mouth.

“So even Italian criminals show more decorum than you, is it that what you want to tell me?”

The anger had subsided and what was supposed to be an accusation sounded more like a rhetorical challenge. At the same moment his opponent accepted it, though, John saw himself being stripped of his weapons. Without hesitation, Sherlock stepped ahead and effectively blocked John’s path out of the doorway, reducing him to what felt like the dumb, petrified mess he had been in the chapel.

“If I didn’t have any manners, I could shamelessly exploit the situation for my purposes,” he growled and bent forwards. “The racing pulse. The flush of survival.”

He supported himself on the door with his hands, hindering John from escaping or even turning his head, but John decided that it would not be possible to flee anyway, because his senses were overloaded with the tempting onslaught of the warm breath on his throat, the addictive smell… something rich and vibrant, a promise of everything he had never dared to imagine.

“And why not?” Sherlock interrupted his thoughts and _Oh God, why not?_ flashed through John’s head. His heartbeat pounding against his ribs, he meant to suffocate at the same time.

“Nothing is as exhilarating as the feeling of being alive,” those lips whispered against John’s temple. “Truly alive.”

Even before he could come to a decision, his fingers had gotten there first. Almost imperceptibly his hands moved, the first contact with the rough fabric of the jacket intriguing John, the texture against his fingertips as beguiling as the man himself, and everything in him seemed drawn to Sherlock with uncontrollable force. He just had to turn his head slightly and his lips would be exactly where he desperately wished them to be. _If I have to perish, why not like that?_

John closed his eyes and his fingers grasped the jacket to pull – only to have it snatched away again. All at once everything was cold, and bewildered, he blinked to acclimate his eyes to the half-light of the alley.

 _Voices_. And they were approaching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much, snogandagrope, for showing so much patience when I refuse to be sensible :)


	4. An Outing

Sherlock lightly gripped John’s sleeve to steer him down the alley. As if someone else was pulling his strings, John followed him around various turns and down a wide street until they finally arrived at the river, the pension already in sight. Thankful for the calming gurgling of the water, John stopped at the embankment and on impulse rested his arms on the railing, suddenly feeling exhausted.

“Something extraordinary has happened,” Sherlock said in the direction of the river, but all John could process was his shoulder touching the other man’s. Only slowly he collected his wits, yet the last utterance did not make any sense to him regardless.

“The mugging?” He cleared his throat, trying to make his voice sound less feeble. “I’d be very thankful if you didn’t tell anyone in the pension about that. My sister would be very alarmed if she heard about it.”

Sherlock looked at him, frowning, as if John had interrupted his train of thought. He studied him, schooling his features into an expression of quiet regard and John felt his breath hitch.

He had been so wrong. It had not been madness to presume that the man might be referring to the things John dreaded most. It had been madness to _doubt_ it. Just like Sherlock was implying to maintain silence on the event in the alley, the looks and words before and after that incident had meant exactly what John had feared.

“Dinner will be served soon,” John said quickly and straightened. The distance to the pension was small and he quickened his steps, acutely aware of those following him. When he reached the house, he said a silent thanks – he was safe for now. And he even managed to climb the stairs without looking back again, yet Sherlock Holmes’ eyes boring into his back, together with John’s deeply ingrained manners demanded a different conclusion to the evening. Before he reached the last landing to his floor, John turned around.

“I was really wobbly on my legs, but thanks again for not making my foolish behaviour public,” John said and did not dare to glance at the waiting figure on the exit to the stairs. “Well, the whole incident was nothing but a bit of bad luck. It’s surprising how quickly one returns to the old life afterwards.”

Silence. John had never been able to endure it very well, but now the severity of the moment depressed his chest like a lead weight and helplessly, he looked at the other man. The disappointment, though, manifesting on Sherlock’s face before he turned away to leave wordlessly, practically choked John.

The sad look settled in his mind and even followed him to the window with the view that suddenly did not promise anything it had offered that morning. Now the evening was nothing but a black curtain drawn to extinguish all light, and only when his eyelids were becoming heavy did John pay attention to the clock again.

He had promised to see about Harriet!

“You’re late.” She opened the door just a crack, obviously determined to cause a scene for John in the hallway.

“I know, I’ll settle the scores tomorrow,” he promised and his sister made a face.

“You’re lucky the Signora brought me dinner. It was even better than yesterday, don’t you think?”

John did not know why Harriet just snorted derisively when he was still fishing for words. She immediately slammed the door shut, making John’s guilty conscience ten times worse. Even so, John was thankful that he could focus his guilt on something else for a short while.

He should not postpone the necessary deliberation about his situation, though. However, he knew that he would not be able to form a coherent thought as hungry as he was, and with all the charm he could muster he managed to talk the landlady into making him a sandwich to make up for the dinner he had missed. It would be enough nourishment for a span of mulling.

One thing was clear, John admitted to himself. This was the situation he had always wanted to avoid at all cost. Now that he found himself in this exact quandary, it caused more frantic fear than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams. Dejectedly, he sat down on the settee at the foot of his bed and rubbed his face, hoping that his mind would conjure up a way out of this muddle.

Complete avoidance seemed to be best. He needed a strategy to shun Sherlock Holmes and if that was not possible, the older brother, Harriet or one of the other guests had to be with them. It did not matter what kind of spurious arguments he had to employ to achieve such a constellation.

Most importantly, to make this work, Harriet had to recover. John nodded once, firmly, and resolved to be more solicitous.

Harriet, to John’s great relief, was already knocking at his door before he had even buttoned up his shirt in the morning. He exhaled. The sleepless night with dozens of alternate scenarios had been in vain. With Harriet present he could get through breakfast.

The Holmses were sitting at their usual places and Mycroft greeted him profusely whereas the younger brother preferred to stare at his empty plate. Mr Lestrade bent forward the moment Harriet and John sat down and even before the tea was starting to be served, the reverend explained his plans to them.

“Now, Miss Harriet, a couple of American ladies and the Holmses follow me to the Torre del Gallo today. Would you and your brother like to participate in that excursion?”

“John, did you hear that? It sounds wonderful, let’s go there.”

 _Wonderful,_ John thought. _Rather a direct descent into hell._ “A very tempting offer,” he said and sighed in what he hoped was a convincing display of honest resignation. “Go with them, Harriet, I’m very sorry, but I have to exchange money and run some minor errands. You already missed out on so much yesterday, I can handle those things by myself.”

She looked torn, yet in the end the younger sister, who had always sided with her adored brother, won.

“What about us exploring the city together? There’s so much to see. We can start at the post office.” She linked arms with John and rested her head on his shoulder. “We could check if Aunt Charlotte wrote a letter, you see, I could die for some news from home.”

Relief coursed through John and he ignored Mr Lestrade’s disappointed face. When he became rector of Summer Street, they would have enough opportunities to go on a trip together.

Without sparing the other guests another glance, John finished his breakfast quickly and concentrated on his sister. Mycroft Holmes bid everyone a good day and John just nodded in the approximate direction, thankful that the brothers left the room before him.

Yet even when he was washing down his last bite with a big gulp of tea, trying hard to focus on his sister and Mr Lestrade talking, he still could not follow their conversation. The two showed no inclination to include him anyway, and why should they? They had surely noticed his rather constrained focus on the food, and at a loss what to do, John stared at the embroidered tablecloth.

Just a few more minutes and he could get up. Harriet would be the centre of his attention from then on, and not the recurring impressions of the day before. The smell of Sherlock’s jacket… the tickling of the dark curls on his skin… and the realisation that the man had abandoned all caution to be near him.

It was a remarkable feeling. Incredible. With all of his might John tried to stifle the unbridled euphoria at the thought, even managing to keep a calm composure up to the moment Harriet pulled him towards the river and forced him to start their walk along its bank. _Don’t stop!_ he commanded inwardly, but she turned towards the water, pausing to rest her arms on a railing.

“Oh, that’s splendid,” she said, laughing, and John could not believe how cruel chance was playing him.

“I wish Charlotte could see that, too,” his sister exclaimed. She followed the river, just to cross it over the nearest bridge and then walk along the same street John had taken after his two fateful encounters. Suddenly he understood why some people believed in ghosts. The armed man appeared before his mind’s eye just like Sherlock Holmes, and with some difficulty, John managed to steer Harriet in the direction of the Piazza Signoria.

Fortunately they did not encounter a ghost there. Instead Mr Lavish approached them, positively beaming with joy.

“Oh, the Watsons. Welcome! I’ve been here since eight, collecting material for my book. Most of it useless, but one has to be flexible.”

“What will it be about?” John asked, grateful for the diversion that topic provided.

“Love, murder, abduction, revenge. The usual. And of course I’ll pick the British tourists and their behaviour to pieces. You know who I mean.”

John winced. The Miss Alans had done their work. Even a supposed libertine like Mr Lavish could not escape them.

“I guess you mean the Holmes brothers,” he said quietly and Mr Lavish smiled, satisfied, only to start waving energetically a moment later. “Mr Eager!” he shouted and then leaned towards John conspiratorially. “Another witness of their rude conduct.”

The clergyman came closer in a rather measured pace and eyed John sceptically.

“This is Mr Eager, the vicar of our little congregation in Florence,” Mr Lavish introduced him. “Mr Eager, this is my esteemed friend John Watson and his charming sister, Miss Harriet Watson.”

Obviously prepared to forget the event of the day before, Mr Eager bowed to Harriet and shook hands with John, whereupon Mr Lavish seemed to decide that his work had been done.

“Excuse me, I’m very busy. I’m convinced that Mr Eager can also tell you some interesting things about the city, he lives here after all,” he said and turned to go.

“Mr Lavish, you don’t happen to have my guide book with you?” John asked and with a look of utter contempt the old man fished the small book from his pocket. He pressed it in John’s hand and left wordlessly.

“A very bustling fellow, that Mr Lavish,” the clergyman said, “sometimes a bit too busy for his age.”

“Well, he seems to –” John started, but Mr Eager continued without respite.

“Of course I prefer him to ill-mannered people like the young man and his brother we had the misfortune of meeting in Santa Croce yesterday.”

“Who did you meet?” Harriet asked.

“The Holmses,” John answered curtly, hoping that Mr Eager would let the subject drop.

“I heard the elder brother writes for the socialist press,” the clergyman said scornfully and John could not suppress a certain urge to add something to the brothers’ defence when the other man changed the topic after all. “But this is not important. What do you think about joining me in an outing tomorrow? Up to the hills via Fiesole, on the way back we pass Settignano. It’s delightful up there, you have to see it.”

“It would be a pleasure,” John answered directly. An invitation by someone who was not connected to the pension would solve all his problems.

“Good, then I’ll pick you up with the carriages. I’m much more experienced in negotiating good prices.” Just like Mr Lavish before him, Mr Eager vanished in one of the small alleys leading away from the square.

“This is nonsense,” Harriet ranted.

“Why? It sounds like a very promising excursion,” John tried to calm her down.

“Of course it does. That’s the reason why Mr Lestrade has arranged the coach ride for tomorrow. Inviting us again just shows what a conceited old man Mr Eager is.”

“Mr Lestrade? When?” John asked, bewildered, but his sister just rolled her eyes.

“You were out and about, God knows where. But Mr Eager will get the shock of his life,” she said and grinned mischievously. “Guess who Mr Lestrade has invited.”

 _The Holmses,_ John answered inwardly, but Harriet had not waited for an answer and was already sauntering in the direction of a stall selling postcards. As if in a trance, John followed her, zealous to live up to his roles as protector and tutor during the rest of the day, but no matter how much Harriet rejoiced over the letter from her aunt and how much she laughed about Charlotte’s accounts of Sir Harry Otway’s aversion to the new villas in the village, everything appeared to be clouded by an impenetrable mist.

“Mrs Vyse and her daughter went to Rome,” Harriet said and looked at John questioningly. “Do you know the family?”

“Vaguely. Nice people if I remember correctly,” John answered and desperately tried to match familiar faces to the name. “Very educated, I think.”

Rome. This could be his last option.

“If we go to the country tomorrow, we should see as much of the city’s sights as possible today,” John remarked and they followed the trail of the guide book like breadcrumbs leading though a forest. In the evening, he was completely exhausted from the constant walking, reading and explaining, but he had at least managed to keep any thought of the following day at bay. Even at table, John got a last respite as the Holmses were not present, but all of that could not hide the fact that the next day would come eventually.

And _he_ would be there.

The entire night John was plagued by this idea. Luckily, he managed to cause a bit of chaos when the party wanted to enter the carriages, and he ended up with Mycroft Holmes, their group complemented by an optimistic Mr Lavish and a scowling Mr Eager.

Harriet had hovered over Mr Lestrade and because the first carriage was full, Sherlock had no other choice but to join the incessantly chatting couple. John hoped that those two were less obvious in their flirting than the coachman and his alleged sister next to him. Fortunately Mr Eager was sitting with his back to them and therefore had not taken notice of their rather shameless display.

“Now, Mr Watson,” the clergyman addressed him. “You’re travelling as someone interested in art?”

“Oh, no, no,” John hastened to say and tore his eyes away from the couple on the box, blinding out the twinge of envy their playful seduction sent through him.

“Perhaps as someone who wants to explore human nature, just like me?” Mr Lavish asked and John shook his head.

“No, I’m just a tourist.”

Mr Lavish’s lecture about that intolerable species was answered by Mycroft Holmes nodding off, until the coachman’s attempts at kissing his companion were successful at last and the coach was shaken by a heavy jolt when the man unwittingly yanked the reins.

“Piano, piano,” Mr Eager scolded and turned around. “What’s going on here?”

“She… my sister,” the young Italian repeated, but the clergyman called him a liar and demanded that the girl step down from the box.

“Leave them alone.” Mycroft Holmes had woken up. “Driven by lovers! That’s worth a king! Do we meet true happiness so often that we have to chase it off the box if it happens to sit there?”

Mr Eager persisted, though, and the girl had to continue the ride with the second group. The elder Holmes could barely contain his disappointment when the coaches set in motion again.

“Don’t fight spring, isn’t that the popular saying, Mr Eager? Yet here we are, doing just that. Is there a difference between spring in nature and in man? Still we’re admiring the one while we’re condemning the other.”

After this speech, a frosty silence permeated the party and although John had dreaded the arrival at their destination, he was nevertheless relieved to escape the disharmonious group when they stopped. Mr Eager led their little procession through nature, yet he could not prevent small groups from absconding.

John followed Harriet and Mr Lestrade, who briskly made their way towards an open field, and while he was ambling after them, he allowed his eyes to stray. After the strenuous ride, he could finally enjoy the landscape which admittedly was just as breathtaking as Alessio Baldovinetti had experienced it five hundred years ago – no reason, though, to join Mr Eager, who lectured the others about that old master’s paintings. John took in the valley that opened up to his view. A gigantic natural amphitheatre with fields situated terrace-like on the hillsides, alternating with small, grassy slopes and scattered with olive trees, yet nevertheless uncultivated and wild in big parts.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to talk to Mr Lavish, my dear brother? You got along quite well in Florence, didn’t you?” Harriet asked and threw him a suggestive glance. Vigorously, she pulled Mr Lestrade in the direction of a tree-covered meadow and John slowed down even more. Of course he could pretend not to have realised his sister’s wish to be alone with the clergyman, but he would not hear the end of it if he dared to do that.

“You’re right, that’s a good idea,” he replied. “Mr Lestrade? I know my sister is in good hands.”

“You can rely on me, I’ll escort Miss Watson safely back to the meeting place.”

John watched them walking away through the high grass and he listened intently for some signal of Mr Eager and Mycroft Holmes who, if they were together, would surely be involved in a heated argument. Yet apart from the buzzing of the insects and the rustling of leaves there were no other sounds and John eventually returned to the carriages where the coachmen were taking a cigarette break.

“Questo…” He pointed at the cigarette of the young Italian. It looked like one of those he had seen in Mr Lavish’s case. “Questo uomo?”

Smiling, the man stood up and descended from the coach. He took some steps and then showed John a narrow path through rather thick undergrowth.

“There,” he said and John thanked him. With some effort he fought his way through the shrubbery because the path had quickly disappeared. Unsure if the old man had really taken such an uncomfortable trail, John went on regardless. Maybe this was supposed to be another ‘adventure’ Mr Lavish was so keen on.

Cursing under his breath, he struggled to progress through the thicket yet it almost seemed as if the shrubs did not want to let go of him. Grateful for a small stretch of blue he detected between the leaves and twigs, John stumbled along and energetically tore the last barriers to freedom out of his way to escape into a field of barley. Some more steps and then his momentum was gone and he looked up – just to freeze straight away.

 _Flee!_ his mind shouted, but his body did not want to obey him. In turn, the other man, who had been standing in the middle of the field, started to move. Self-confidently, even determined he advanced and John could not help the feeling that everything in him had decided to be the opposite of what he saw hurrying towards him. Instead of the complete conviction in Sherlock’s eyes he could just hold hesitation out to him, a jumbled mess of sentiments that dominated everything up to the moment Sherlock reached him and forcefully pulled him over.

The broken stems digging into his back, the hard ground – they vanished in a heartbeat when almost on impact, John also felt lips collide with his.

Briefly they remained motionless and it flashed through John’s mind that the other man might be waiting for some kind of reaction, but just like before he could not find it in him to do anything. Wouldn’t it be enough if this mouth embedded itself on his for all eternity?

Yet when warm lips cautiously started to feel their way along his, he woke from his daze and answered with some tentative movements. As curiously as he was explored, he also catalogued every curve of the skin and each fold of the mouth, and he would have continued the slow journey indefinitely if his jacket had not been grabbed all of a sudden. Without breaking the kiss, he let himself be rolled on top of Sherlock.

John felt his pulse throbbing in his temples. The unknown force that was taking hold of him did not want to be careful or hesitate any longer. With unbridled strength it spurred him on to enjoy more of that body under him, cause friction where he already felt a pronounced reaction and follow the path his arousal dictated to him mercilessly.

He needed more. Purposefully he opened his mouth, his tongue asking for entrance and finding it granted. The first touch of the warm, slick tongue nearly made John delirious with rapture and only peripherally he was aware of hands threading their way under his jacket and around his nape, intent on drawing him as near as they could.

“John?”

Through the haze of his desire he heard his name, somewhere far away.

“Are you here?”

His blood ran cold. _Mycroft_.

Mustering all of his strength, John disentangled himself from Sherlock’s embrace and jumped up. The voice had come from the direction of the shrubbery and without thinking, John dashed towards it.

“Wait, I’ll be with you in a moment!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks snogandagrope, for helping me ironing out the kinks :)


	5. The Storm

John got into the carriage and the Holmes brothers vanished from his view.

“This is madness!” he heard Mycroft Holmes exclaim. “You cannot walk the distance, Sherlock, it’ll take hours.”

There was no reply and a little later, the elder Holmes appeared next to the carriage, only getting in after a moment of hesitation.

“Stubborn as a mule,” he cursed, plunking into the seat opposite John. “And there’s a storm coming up.” Worriedly he searched the horizon and leaned out of the coach afterwards. “Of course he’s going to walk alone. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

He threw John a helpless glance yet John couldn’t think of any other reply but a shrug. Hiding his pent-up tension was hard enough and the prospect of sitting cooped up in a carriage with Sherlock did not seem a particularly good way to conclude the day. A bit of severe weather was just the distraction he needed.

John heard his sister laughing when the two carriages started moving, briskly making their way towards Florence. The drivers had unequivocally made it clear that the weather would not allow for any detours and although it was not raining yet, dark clouds were congregating dangerously, promising a very uncomfortable evening for those outside.

John reclined in his seat and looked at the turmoil in the sky. _How extraordinarily fitting,_ he thought. For hours he had been feeling just as charged but could not find a way to let it bleed off somehow. During their afternoon in the valley, Mycroft Holmes had seemed to be completely unperturbed by John’s inattentiveness – he was obviously used to something along those lines. Distracted, John had had a difficult time trying to keep up a conversation after Mycroft had found him in the field, and only when they met Mr Lavish was John able to relinquish this responsibility. The old man had been eagerly writing something in his notebook, yet monopolised the discussion the moment he pocketed his pen.

Meeting at the carriages had been really trying, though. John stayed clear of Sherlock, averting his gaze although he could feel the other man’s eyes on him, and he was sure that this was the reason why Sherlock declared he would not join them.

It was better this way, John thought and clenched his teeth. Sherlock would make it back to the pension before the storm reached them full force – the longer they drove through the darkening landscape, though, the less likely such an outcome appeared.

“I do hope he’s all right,” the elder Holmes said, becoming more and more restless when they reached the city. The pension came into view at last, yet the prospect of getting out of the carriages did not improve Mycroft's mood. “There’ll be a thunderstorm. One shouldn’t trifle with that.”

The party assembled in the parlour to wait for dinner and John took one of the newspapers. In an attempt at avoiding the elder Holmes, John sat down in one of the chairs, reading the old news from home with more attention than it deserved.

“There is already lighting at the horizon,” the man said and John could barely remain in the seat, as anxious as the voice sounded. “And there will be heavy rain as well.”

John breathed in, putting aside the newspaper. The other man’s worries had nothing to do with his own scruples and it would be wrong to simply ignore them.

“Dinner’s been served,” he said and stood up to pat Mycroft Holmes reassuringly on the shoulder. “You won’t change anything if you stay here. Let’s join the others.”

“You’re right.” He let himself be guided to the dining room by John but continued glancing towards the window during their meal regardless.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Bewildered, John looked up at the sound of his sister’s voice. Apparently he was as distracted as the elder Holmes. He gave his sister an apologetic smile and tried to focus his attention on his untouched plate, the French beans tasteless in his mouth.

“I’m tired,” he admitted. Pushing the plate away, he sat back in his chair. “If you can do without me, I’d like to go to my room,” he said to Harriet, who directly grasped his hand.

“Aren’t you feeling well? I could ask the Signora to bring you tea.”

“No, that’s not… thank you, no, I’m fine,” he reassured her. Was he ill? It almost felt like it and the moment he arrived in his room, John leaned against the wall, slightly breathless.

 _It’s the weather’s fault. It makes me restless, that’s it,_ he decided. He was just being empathetic when it came to the elder brother’s concerns – his heart beating like mad, now that he was alone, did not mean anything else. There was no connection to the wild hammering he had experienced prior to his hasty flight in the afternoon. _There wasn’t_.

John banged his head against the wall. God, what had he been thinking? But it was Sherlock’s fault anyway, he had been pursuing him relentlessly, had exploited every possibility, he was…

Breathing in deeply, John halted his train of thoughts. _What nonsense,_ he reprimanded himself. It was his own fault. No one had forced him to do anything, not even during the incident in the hills.

Involuntarily, the memory conjured up the demanding lips and he could almost feel them on his again. So incredibly alluring! How could normal standards of behaviour be applied to the man? John asked himself desperately. In that barley field, Sherlock Holmes had looked like a Greek god for a moment and when he came nearer, there did not seem to be any other option but giving oneself to him.

“For goodness sake, this isn’t Mr Lavish’s trashy novel,” John snorted derisively. This story would not have a happy ending, rather the exact opposite, and John pinched his nose in frustration, staring at the tiles.

And if someone had seen them?

With some effort, he suppressed the fear spreading in him immediately. It was impossible, there had been no one in the vicinity, John decided and straightened. Outside, it had become dark and he lit a candle on the mantelpiece.

Contemplating the flickering flame, John sighed. Hopefully, the whole episode would pass into oblivion just like his last weakness twenty-five years ago. Buried under obligations and manners, discarded in the depth of his mind only to flash through an occasional tumultuous dream.

One obstacle remained, though: Sherlock’s safe return. John spied out of the window, always adamant not to be seen from the street. If the other man was hurt on his way back, John would never forgive himself. The fact that someone had come to grief because of him would haunt him forever, yet despite the increasingly loud claps of thunder, there was no change to be seen outside.

A brilliant light illuminated the city and John flinched. The thunderstorm was dangerously near now and horrified, he saw another thunderbolt darting through the sky, much lighter than before, but only when sparks sprayed over the street, did he see that the overhead wire of the tram line had been struck. One of the great supports fell down and panicking, John started pacing up and down the room.

“It’s highly unlikely for someone to get struck by lightning in a city,” he murmured. But in the countryside? Had Sherlock arrived in Florence yet?

John peeked to the window. The first raindrops were landing on the glass and although it had just started to rain, the big room turned cold and humid straightaway. The candle flickered in an imperceptible draft, but it could not make the paintings on the ceiling come alive. Instead, the fantastic creatures looked strangely pale, as if they possessed just traces of their former liveliness.

“Everything will be fine.” The door John had been addressing did not answer, though. There was no sound in the hallway, only the thunder outside and the increasingly strong pelts of rain on the glass were providing an unsettling background concert. John barely dared to breathe, trying to avoid missing the faintest noise.

 _But why? Why should Sherlock come to me?_ he asked himself. He would stay in the parlour with his brother, after everything that had happened in the afternoon. “I should be thankful to postpone that last, necessary confrontation,” he said to himself. As agitated as he was, this dispute would not end well, yet at the moment, he would prefer it to the waiting. Just some more time and then he could check the parlour. “Everything will be –”

He gave a start. Footsteps. Perhaps it was just Harriet who wanted to bid him goodnight, yet the shoes were treading forcefully, quickly. It could not be Harriet. Maybe it was Mycroft?

Whoever it was, he walked along the entire hallway. _He’s coming to my room,_ John thought and felt his heartbeat accelerating. And if it really was Sherlock? Should he pretend not to be in the room to make him go away again?

The door! It wasn’t locked!

Although John sprinted forwards, the moment he grabbed the key, the door handle was pressed down and the door flew open. John stumbled backwards and his eyes tried to get accustomed to the bright light of the hallway before it was shut out again.

 _No god,_ flashed through John’s mind when he saw him standing in front of him, damp strands of hair covering his forehead and the eyes reflecting the candle’s glow. _My undoing._

“Say no and I’ll leave.” The voice was hoarse, the strenuous run still reverberating in it. “Say it,” Sherlock whispered insistently when John did not answer.

 _Go,_ John ordered inwardly, but no word wanted to pass his lips – affirmation enough for the other man. He barged forwards and clutched John so tightly as if no second had passed since their encounter in the hills. When he closed his eyes, John still felt the warmth of the air and smelled the grain, except that now he knew what to expect on top of that, and he couldn’t wait.

Greedily he buried his hands in the wet curls when the familiar mouth made contact again. Suddenly the only danger he saw was the possibility of someone interrupting them, so there was no careful experimenting any more, tongues had to meet immediately and start a seductive dance.

John’s breath caught but his impatience won, allowing for no pause in his desperate need to explore every inch he could reach of the body he clung to. Sherlock’s hands started to follow the same course of action and lightened the embrace, making it possible for John to breathe again. Instead of pressing them together, the hands now wandered around John’s waist and tugged purposefully to pull out the shirt.

John felt cold fingers roam over his back. God, yes, skin, he needed that too.

But how? When Sherlock’s hands let go of him, he immediately took his chance to strip the wet jacket from the other man, yet the moment it dropped on the floor, Sherlock’s studious fingers searched for another goal and before John could advance in his own quest, his shirt was being unbuttoned.

“I…” he gasped, but his hectic attempts at reaching under Sherlock’s clothes were futile. The one word he had uttered seemed to have stretched the other man’s patience to the limit and unrelentingly, the lips placed a ban on speaking. Sherlock’s hands snaked under the unbuttoned shirt and John gave up finding a way to do the same.

An embrace that supported his weight on the other man’s nape had to suffice, stabilising him so that his buckling legs did not give way completely – a strategy that worked until the hands that had studiously explored him suddenly pulled him nearer by his lower back, pressing their bodies against each other.

“Oh… God,” John panted when he felt the pronounced hardness rubbing his, “we’ve got to…”

The brutal kiss silencing him overwhelmed him even more than the flexible body and he frantically clutched Sherlock to avoid sagging on the floor. By no means could he resist the urgency the other man displayed, he just stumbled backwards until he felt the frame of the bed against his legs.

 _Decide!_ his mind commanded when he was already letting himself be pushed on the mattress unresistingly. Briefly flustered by the madness of having another man in his bed, John gave in to the mouth that made him senseless with desire and the hand on his waistband, fumbling its way towards the contact he so desperately needed.

Warm skin on glowing flesh. Fingers that encircled his manhood, deftly stimulating it to let his arousal soar beyond measure... With great effort, John suppressed the sounds that wanted to voice his excitement, yet the second he felt the hardness of the other man rubbing against his, he could no longer exercise restraint.

“Sher…” the name was choked by a moan he also could not hold back. The lips – till then busy trying to keep John quiet – disappeared and were replaced by a strong hand.

“Shhh,” sounded through John’s fuzzy mind, but then a hand grabbed both their erections and all of a sudden, the energy that had nearly driven him to distraction for the entire day was back again, and it was wonderful and brilliant, even though it would strike him down like lightning. John’s world was reduced to the friction in his crotch and infrequent gasps for air, the hand on his mouth relentlessly choking every sound. And although he knew that he should fight it, the signals his body sent out made it clear that any kind of resistance would be futile. He had lost the battle anyway.

It was of no importance any more that his lungs screamed for air and his mind slowly stopped cooperating, only those delicious notions concentrating at the tip of his manhood still existed, wrenching every last shred of control he had over his body from him.

“Just let it happen,” John heard a whisper, almost too quiet to perceive, but everything in him wanted to follow the order. With an enormous force, the pent-up lust first ignited and then ripped him apart in bright sparks until slippery fingers had coaxed each last drop of his juices from him. Only when John thought he would black out did the hand on his mouth let go, although there would be no pause regardless.

“Touch me, please,” Sherlock ground out and instinctively John reached out to tentatively grab the other man’s erection. After so many years... how was he supposed to...? Yet the slightest pressure had the body over him tensing briefly before it exploded in frenzied movement, and not more than half a dozen shoves into his fist were necessary and he felt the warm liquid on his hand. John tightened his grip, enjoying the unbridled passion he could elicit.

Even when the penis in his hand softened, John could not bring himself to let go. Finally there was the nearness he had yearned for for so long, someone else’s skin, the intoxicating smell...

Sherlock rolled over and John released his grip, missing the touch straightaway. Barely able to retain himself from combing through the dark curls that framed the face, John observed the usually bright eyes that now seemed unfathomably black in the candlelight.

 _Am I allowed to kiss him?_ A tiny smile, just hinted at by a corner of the mouth was enough to erase all of John’s doubts. Of course he was allowed to. He had to!

“Are you still awake?”

John stopped in his forwards movement. Harriet! And the door was still unlocked.

A knock. “John?” The impatient undertone made John jump up and snatch his dressing gown from the wardrobe. He heard rustling and steps – Sherlock had also gotten up, and the moment John reached the door, the other man hid behind it. Carefully, John opened it, but not more than a crack.

“Are you feeling better?” his sister asked, looking at him inquisitively. “Mr Lavish, Mr Holmes and Mr Lestrade had the idea of playing bridge. Do you want to join them?”

Like he had to clear out his tiredness, John rubbed his hair. “Yes, I’m coming. Tell them that I’ll be down with them in a minute,” he said and closed the door.

 _On the brink of exposal. Again._ Panic still tensing his every muscle, John took in the man who had changed his life so irrevocably and who was obviously prepared to accept whatever downfall they would be facing. Leaning against the wall, just about to button up his trousers, he was no Greek god in a field and not even a miraculous survivor of a thunderstorm any more.

 _He is real._ _A genuine temptation and a palpable danger to everything I have to protect_ , John thought. He saw him stuffing his shirt in his trousers and when he raised his head to answer the gaze directed at him, John knew that there was no choice but to do what he had always done.

“You could…” Sherlock started and John silenced him with a wave of his hand.

“Wait a while after I’m gone. And then leave.”

As quickly as he could, John changed his clothes, always aware of Sherlock watching him, but even when he left the room, John trained his eyes in a different direction. On the way to the parlour, he even managed to adopt an expression of mild exhaustion and banish his hopeless dejection at once.

“Good to see you’ve recovered,” Mr Lavish said and dealt out the cards.

“I should have taken a break like my sister.” John sighed.

“Well, one shouldn’t underestimate the challenges of travelling,” Mr Lestrade confirmed and John could not suppress a nervous cough before he answered.

“That’s the reason why I’m just playing two rounds because tomorrow will be very stressful.” John stared at his deck of cards, but the pattern became blurred. He had to concentrate, though, as hard as it might be, and prepare for the storm of indignation he would be facing.

“Why?” Mr Lestrade asked. “Are you going to the Torre del Gallo after all?”

John briefly closed his eyes to brace himself. There was just this one possibility, no matter how much resistance he would meet.

“We’re leaving for Rome tomorrow.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to snog who makes the world a bit better every day.


	6. Medieval

A ray of light shone through a small gap between the heavy curtains, which otherwise plunged the room in a soothing half-light. For once, John wished he tended not to close them all the time, but the carpet was new and it deserved some protection from the summer sun.

Directing his gaze at the Oriental pattern at his feet for a change, he saw Charlotte’s shoes out of the corner of his eyes. First shuffling impatiently, they were then suddenly covered by her dress and vanished towards the window.

“Are they still here?” John asked without looking up.

“Of course they are,” his mother’s sister replied. “But you have to come to a decision eventually. Harriet can’t put her off forever.”

“I suppose it’s time,” John said, more to himself than to Charlotte. He sighed. When they had met in Rome, he thought he would  propose to Cecilia, but now that they were back in England, he still lacked the courage.

“Mrs Vyse will be overjoyed when her daughter’s married at last,” Charlotte declared mockingly, and John felt his hands clutching the armrest.

“I’m aware of what you’re trying to tell me,” he growled. She had made it clear often enough that she didn’t think the match ideal.

“Why do you care at all? It doesn’t matter what I say, does it?” Charlotte asked. “You don’t need my permission.”

“And what would you say?”

“To what?”

“What would you reply if I wanted to know your opinion? Asked you if you weren’t overjoyed with Cecilia and me getting married?” John raised his head and looked at her unflinchingly.

“I would say no, I’m not.” Charlotte held his gaze. “I have to be, and if only because I can’t say I am.”

“You’ve always hated her,” John stated.

“What nonsense, I don’t hate her.” Charlotte dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “I just don’t like her, that’s all.”

“But I like her,” John said with more conviction than he felt. “She’s clever, attractive, and has an impeccable reputation. And her manners are perfect.”

Charlotte snorted. “Of course.”

She strode through the room and when her path came to an end at the shelf, she studied the books, deep in thought. “I don’t know, perhaps it’s because I would have liked to have you and Harriet for myself after your return. It was a very quiet winter without you, believe me. Though it could also have something to do with Mr Lestrade’s comment.”

John gave a start. “What comment?”

“You know Mr Lestrade’s strange ways. One never knows if he’s joking or he’s serious. He said: ‘John’s the ideal bachelor’, and for some reason this made me wonder.”

“An ideal bachelor,” John mumbled to himself. He shook his head. “There is no such thing. It would be the end of society as we know it.”

Charlotte turned around, frowning. “Don’t be so melodramatic, John,” she said. “Ah, well, it’s your decision. So where are you going to live? Here or in London?”

 _Where am I going to spend my life?_ John pinched his lips and stared into the half-light unfocusedly, yet his mind refused to address the question. The only thought arising was that he should stop protecting the furniture, and on the spur of the moment, he got up and opened the curtains.

Not far away from the house, he saw Cecilia standing on the terrace, engaged in a vivid conversation with Harriet. The two had got along from the first moment on, perhaps because Cecilia was not only educated, but also behaved with integrity throughout – a characteristic Harriet lacked much too often. John searched for words to describe the picture in front of him, arriving at the same comparison as always in the end.

Gothic. Like a medieval statue – that was Cecilia. Upright, a saint guarding a French Cathedral, yet not unattractive in her asceticism. From whichever angle John looked at her, she was the perfect way to a respectable life, and before his inner voice started making its recurring objections again, John opened the door wide.

“Cecilia.”

Upon seeing him, Harried scurried past him inside the house. Purposefully, John marched across the terrace, his momentum only briefly slowed down by Cecilia’s knowing expression. Yet why should he care that she suspected what he was about to do? It would even be easier then.

She accepted his proposal with the same grace she walked with into the sitting room afterwards, and immediately, Harriet jumped up from her seat.

“Did he ask you?” she cried excitedly.

Cecilia smiled. “I promessi sposi,” she answered, and taking in Harriet’s bewildered face, she added, “and I said yes.”

Worriedly, John observed Charlotte, her face showing fleeting traces of shock that quickly made way for acceptance, and then all three women went outside as if they were already a sworn community. They descended down the steps, walked over the tennis court, and John assumed that afterwards, they would take the same path as usual, along the dahlia patch to the kitchen garden. There, next to potatoes and peas, the big event would be discussed.

John closed the curtains. Sighing, he sat down in a chair to light a cigarette.

It tasted odd. _I smoke too little,_ he thought. Perhaps it was the brand, because a couple of months ago he had accepted one of Mr Lavish’s, and had liked it much better.

Italy. John breathed in and, with all of his might, blocked everything that had happened in Florence. In the end, the whole episode had made sense in a strange way, John persuaded himself.

In Rome, Harriet and he had moved to the same hotel as the Vyses, and although they had been welcomed rather sceptically – Cecilia and her mother regarding them similar to Mr Eager, as typical tourists without a real understanding of culture – this attitude had changed quickly. The more journeys they had undertaken together, the more Cecilia’s forced politeness had become a friendliness that caused not exactly passion, but a pleasant calmness in John.

In Rome the thought had crossed his mind that this could be the solution to all of his problems, but when he had had the opportunity to take the step, his courage failed him. Then, three months later in the Alps, he had thought he could finally bring himself to proposing to her. He nevertheless had postponed the move, although Harriet and Cecilia were getting along splendidly and his sister repeatedly urged him to act.

 _Until today. Now everything will take its natural course,_ John thought, satisfied. Nothing could –

“Mr Lestrade,” the maid announced and ushered the new vicar of Summer Street inside.

“I’m inviting myself to tea, dear Mr Watson. Do you think I will get it?”

“I’m quite positive,” John replied with a grin. He stubbed out the cigarette and got up to shake hands with his guest. “In this house the body always gets its nourishment.”

“Yet the mind should also get its share.” The clergyman waggled his eyebrows. “I demand tea, but I provide the choicest gossip imaginable.”

John nodded at the maid and showed his guest a seat.

“I met Sir Harry Otway,” Mr Lestrade said when he sat down, “and I’m convinced that I’m the first one to know about him buying Cissie and Albert from Mr Flack.”

“The semi-detached villas opposite the church?” John asked and pulled a chair over to sit nearer to the clergyman.

“The very houses, yes. We’ll see what he intends to do with them.” He paused, apparently to listen to something. “Now where did you hide the lovely ladies of this house?” he asked eventually.

“They’re outside. No one told them that you arrived, I’m afraid,” John answered.

“Ah, well, we’ll spend some time without them for a change. It’s not as if the two of us aren’t enough.”

“Indeed. Two natural bachelors,” John remarked without thinking, and the clergyman laughed out loudly.

“Gossip really travels like the wind in Windy Corner. Don’t take offence in my words, I don’t want to impose any kind of future on you. Though you have to admit that you live rather secluded.” He leaned back in his chair and looked at John questioningly. “But why? I remember some instances in Italy when I thought you had grown wings and were able to leave that prison of responsibility, and be it for just a moment…“ He paused to clear his throat. "Well, enough of that, you should be happy that you won’t exchange it for the imprisonment that is marriage.”

John felt his teeth gritting, making it almost impossible to speak.

“I’m afraid I have to inform you that this will be the case. This very afternoon, I proposed to Cecilia.”

“What?” Surprised, Mr Lestrade leaned forwards in his seat, and John meant to hear a hint of disappointment in the following words. “I’m sorry, genuinely sorry, Mr Watson. I didn’t know you two…”

“Did I give you a shock?”

“No, no, for heaven’s sake, of course –”

“Mr Lestrade! Have you already heard the good news?”

To John’s relief, Harried stormed inside the room, followed by the other two women.

The clergyman whistled the wedding march. “May their lives be extraordinarily happy, I only wish them the best of luck. And now I insist on my tea. Ah, there it is!”

The maid entered with the desired beverage, and with amazement, John observed how the news of the engagement pervaded the whole atmosphere. It produced a kind of awed bliss in everyone but him, it seemed. Yet the feeling of being surrounded by some impenetrable fog would vanish, John hoped fervently. It was just a matter of time.

***

‘We have to make sure that at the next possible occasion, we show the entire neighbourhood that John has really managed to find a suitable wife’ Charlotte had joked on the day of the engagement, and already one week later, this opportunity arose in the form of a garden party.

Just like John had always emphasised, Cecilia really was presentable. Slender and with a slightly lofty air, she walked with him, and she almost seemed too graceful for the gathering. Only reluctantly, he introduced her to some stuffy widows, yet everything went smoothly and now and then, he could even forget the nagging feeling that the smile he had plastered on his face should not feel so strained. At some time during the afternoon, though, one of the guests spilled a cup of coffee on Cecilia’s dress, and devotedly, John followed Charlotte, his sister and Cecilia inside the house to supervise the removal of the stain.

“How tedious,” said Cecilia and settled in a chair. “Is such an event typical for country society?”

John inhaled and ignored Charlotte’s rolling of the eyes. “Yes, I’m afraid it is,” he sighed. “I’m sorry that you don’t like it.”

“It’s not that bad, John, it’s just… this never-ending string of congratulations, this excessive interest – as if an engagement is something public. I feel confined somehow. Or rather like a barrier divides me from them.”

“Everyone’s got their limitations,” murmured Charlotte, but Cecilia did not pay her any heed.

“There’s a difference between us fencing ourselves in and the case when other people are doing it,” Cecilia explained, unperturbed, and John, who had just been listening with half an ear, suddenly felt himself being pulled out of the trance he had spent the previous days in. As if he was resurfacing after a long dive, he gasped for air.

“Barriers are barriers, especially when they’re at the same place, aren’t they?” Harriet asked. It was obvious that she hadn’t followed Cecilia’s train of thought properly, the actual topic escaping her. John wanted to begin to clarify, but found he couldn’t bring himself to utter a word.

“The motives are different,” Cecilia added.

“Oh, you’re not talking about real fences?” Harriet asked and began to laugh. “Then I know someone who has no fences, as you call them, and that is Mr Lestrade.”

Cecilia snorted rather inelegantly, causing Harriet to look up. “You don’t like Mr Lestrade?”

“I didn’t say that,” Cecilia retorted. John’s disquiet now gained another component when his sister and Charlotte, both sensing a possible degradation of their esteemed clergyman, appeared to be somewhat alarmed by that last statement.

 _Someone has to change the topic,_ John commanded inwardly. _Now!_

“I know a chaplain who does have fences, in fact, he can barely be seen behind all those barriers – Mr Eager, the clergyman we met in Florence,” he said. “If you knew him, you’d wholeheartedly agree,” he explained to Cecilia. “And now let us leave, our hosts will surely excuse us. The journey home is perfect for a carriage ride.”

Now nature as the most simple and innocuous of all topics lay before them. John spoke in high terms of the fuchsia hedges and the winding road, of small ponds and the trees – especially praising a small congregation of larches they passed.

“Despite having always valued life in London above everything, considering myself most happy there, I now think that all the trees and bees under this blue sky make up the most beautiful surroundings after all. The people here are truly the best,” Cecilia said and smiled at John. “Now where exactly are we?” she asked when buildings came into view.

“Summer Street, of course,” Harriet answered. “And there’s the church, Mr Lestrade’s rectory, and in that direction you find the rest of the community.”

“And those buildings over there?”

John frowned when they passed the two small villas Sir Harry had acquired the day Cecilia had been acquired by him.

“Cissie is still to let,” Charlotte remarked and as if on cue, its door was opened, and immediately Charlotte raised her umbrella to touch the coachman.

“Stop. We shouldn’t miss this great chance to find out more about it. Sir Harry, what a pleasure, but what a dreadful sight nonetheless,” she shouted when the elderly man who had left the house approached them carefully. The entire party descended from the coach to meet him halfway.

“Miss Bartlett, I know, but I’m not to blame when the contractor has no sense for architecture. Now all I can do is to find a good tenant. But no old dowagers, if you please. A man is the only sensible choice.”

“The size of the house is perfect,” Cecilia added. “It would be ideal for a bank clerk.”

“Exactly, Miss Vyse,” Sir Harry affirmed, clearly distraught. “It attracts the wrong kind of people. The train connections are too good – a disastrous development, if you ask me.”

Cecilia was on the brink of answering that last remark with a condescending reply, her dislike of aristocratic snobs clearly showing on her face. John hastened to steer the conversation towards more quiet waters.

“Sir Harry,” he interjected, “I may have a solution to your problem: What about a respected author?”

“My dear Mr Watson, this would be wonderful. I presume you know such a gentleman?”

“Yes, of course. In one of his last letters, Mr Lavish mentioned that he was searching for a new residence. Mr Lestrade knows him too. Should I write to him so that he gets in contact with you?”

“My wife always tells me to be cautious. You cannot be careful enough, that is true.”

“So shall I write to Mr Lavish?”

“Yes, please do, Mr Watson.” Sir Harry looked genuinely relieved.

“It’s important that it is a man, though,” Charlotte added. “No gossip, and when they drink, they sleep it off afterwards. When they’re vulgar, they keep it to themselves most of the time. It doesn’t spread so. So give me a man – of course only if he bathes occasionally.”

She turned around and stepped into the carriage again. Cecilia prepared to do the same but her face was marked by visible consternation, prompting John to hold her back before she could follow Charlotte. The amount of inappropriate statements had simply been too high, and it would be best to take Cecilia’s mind off Sir Harry and Charlotte’s blunt remarks.

“Let’s walk home. Just the two of us,” he said and her face lit up. “You two take the carriage.”

Without waiting for a reply, John offered Cecilia to link arms with him. He gently pulled her towards a footpath leading away from the main road.

“Are there two ways?” she wondered.

“One of them leads through the forest,” he answered. “Be careful, there are roots close to the surface, but I’ll guide you around them.”

“I’m surprised, John,” she said after a while. “Until now, it seemed as if you were feeling more at home with me in a room.”

At a loss what to say, John contemplated what she had meant. He remembered the previous months, their travels through Italy, and his mind presented him sunlit rocks of the Dolomites and Tuscan fields, but the landscape never provided the background to a portrait of Cecilia. In his head, she stood in Venetian palazzi and admired murals. She explained the effects of light in paintings while museum watchmen were tiptoeing around her. Or she sat in a parlour and had tea.

It was true. Where ever she appeared in his thoughts, there were walls around them. And what was even more striking: there were no windows in those rooms. No view.

John coughed, embarrassed. “Well, it’s possible.”

“Curious, isn’t it?” Cecilia mused. “I’m convinced that we will look absolutely splendid in those rooms, though,” she added. “Much better than people like Sir Harry – may he get the most vulgar tenants imaginable.”

 _We’ll look splendid. Cultivated. Honourable._ Yet what John had hoped would be a reassuring thought immediately stirred the same feeling of trepidation that had nearly made him lose his countenance earlier that day.

_We’ll be fenced in._

“Look, over there, the Sacred Lake,” he distracted himself.

Cecilia’s face fell. “Rather a puddle.”

“At the moment, yes,” John admitted. “After heavy rainfall, though, the stream flowing through it carries along too much water, and before it can get away, the pool becomes quite large. It’s actually possible to swim in it, so I brought Harriet here when she was still small.”

“John?” The voice, so unlike Cecilia’s normal way to address him, made John stop dead.

“Is something wrong?” he asked worriedly.

“Until now… not even when you proposed to me, did you kiss me.”

“Well… I…” John stuttered. There was no excuse for that kind of behaviour, no explanation apart from the one where he had to admit that he had never felt the urge… not after…

“We could catch up on that, couldn’t we?” she asked, but she meant ‘now’, even John was able to see that. The moment he realised that there would be no way out, he could not even begin to grasp the absurdity of the situation. Cecilia lifted her veil mechanically, and when he approached her, there was just the intense wish to turn away again. Nervously, he pressed his lips on hers, only to step back as quickly as possible afterwards.

He could not say if Cecilia was disappointed. If so, she did not show it and instead gave him a friendly, determined smile that he returned with practised routine. Gallantly, he squeezed her arm, anxious to make her forget the lacking fervour.

“I have to remember to write to Mr Lavish,” he mentioned quickly before it became apparent that he should have said something different altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as usual, to snogandagrope for the betaing -^_^-


	7. The Sacred Lake

_Dear Mr Watson,_

_Similar to my last letter, I want to thank you for recommending me to Sir Harry. Now that my novel has been published, I should really retire and this would be the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately an old affliction has once again made itself repeatedly known, and with the rheumatism my well-known wanderlust came back as well – perhaps because I am used to fleeing to the south when the pain plagues me too much. So now I await my future with joy and sorrow, mostly because the Almighty has not planned for me to spend it in my beloved home country. Before I go on my journey, I saw the necessity to thank you for your help – yet not just in words – and the opportunity arose quickly. In the Italian section of the National Gallery I met the Holmes brothers, you might remember them from Florence, and upon getting to know that they were planning to move to the country, I asked Sir Harry to rent his villa to them. You will be pleased to hear that he agreed to my suggestion. Now let us hope that my journey to Sicily and Greece will be a success – but as long as there is something left of life, one has to make the best of it._

_Yours, Charles Lavish_

John sighed and put the letter back into the drawer of his writing desk. It had been a month since he had received it, but he still could not believe the words. What in God’s name had Mr Lavish thought, devising a scheme like that?

Distractedly, John sorted some receipts from his tenants until he accepted the fact that he would not be able to muster up enough concentration. Again. For weeks it had been like that, yet the moment he had first held the letter in his hands, he had nearly called on Sir Harry. There were no actual reasons why the Holmses should not move in, though, so John had reined in his anger and spent the afternoon in a livid mood that sent everyone from the house except Charlotte.

It took him over a week to calm down. Repeatedly, he told himself that there was no need to worry and that he was engaged after all! Yet when Cecilia returned to London, leaving him alone in Windy Corner, he had nevertheless preferred to stay in the house as much as possible – at least until now.

John got up and went into the hallway to put on his light summer jacket. In the future, Cecilia and he would spend most of their time in London anyway. Charlotte could take care of Windy Corner and Harriet could divide her time between her aunt and the cultivated circles in London.

Perhaps she would find a husband there as well, John thought while he fastened the buttons. Secretly he had hoped for Mr Lestrade as a possible candidate, yet the friendly, but reserved way of their socialising recently told him that the age difference was too large after all.

John looked at the clock and braced himself up to leave the house. After last Sunday’s mass, he had not been able to get around accepting an invitation by Mr Lestrade, and as the women were spending their afternoon at some old acquaintances in the neighbourhood, it would be up to him alone to visit the clergyman.

With mixed feelings John set out for his destination. Quickly he walked down the street, an occasional car full of day-trippers passing him and raising some dust. Despite the noise, though, nature was bright, almost brilliant after the heavy rainfalls, and the scenery carried the spirit of youth.

John felt old. The smell of pines, the wet grass, the exhaust of the cars – everything was but a blur of sensations, and the more houses appeared along the street, the less he could shake the disquieting feeling that he would regret this excursion.

“Mr Watson, you’re early.” John looked up. The clergyman welcomed him at his fence gate.

“Who knows when it will start to rain again,” John justified his arrival, and beaming him an overjoyed smile, Mr Lestrade opened the gate – to step through it and close it again behind himself.

“Then let us take the chance to annoy the good people along our way.”

“What do you mean by that?” John asked warily, slowing down his pace.

“I’m convinced that it will amuse you.” Mr Lestrade already sounded genuinely merry himself and ignored John’s dropping behind.

“Which people?” John asked through clenched teeth.

“You know them. Two brothers, we met them in Florence.”

 _Of course. As if the universe is conspiring against me,_ John thought, and frantically searched for an alternative.

“Oh no, Mr Lestrade. That’s impossible,” he cried out, pointing at the lorry in front of the house the vicar was approaching with big strides. “They’re just moving in. We shouldn’t keep them from their work.”

“I think we should get on their nerves for a little while,” the clergyman replied. “They’re worth it.”

Purposefully he opened the garden gate and strolled over the triangular green of the Villa ‘Cissie’.

“Hullo?” he shouted through the open front door which allowed a glimpse of the disarray inside. The entrance was partly blocked by a wardrobe, though, and Mr Lestrade peeked around it.

“It almost looks as if the removal men weren’t able to carry it upstairs,” he said and vanished in the next room. “The parlour isn’t much better,” John heard the voice, but he stopped on the threshold of the front door. Perhaps there was no need to go inside. “You have to see that – the sheer amount of books those people have!”

Hesitatingly, John followed the other man, fighting against his urge to flee the place for good. _He_ was here. Or maybe he wasn’t? It was possible that the elder brother supervised the move alone.

“Pictures!” Mr Lestrade continued. “Giotto – they must have bought this print in Florence.”

John overcame his reluctance and entered the living room as well, but he had not yet stepped inside when Mr Lestrade brushed past him to return to the hallway.

“What are those people doing up there? Mr Holmes?” he shouted. Perplexed, he turned to John. “I think we have to come back another time.”

John needed a moment to process his relief and saw the clergyman marching towards the exit, yet when he was about to follow him, he heard someone on the stairs.

 _It’s him._ Without looking back, John knew that it was not Mycroft Holmes coming down the staircase. _But I’m safe,_ he reminded himself _,_ _nothing can change my life now._ Undoubtedly he would be able to meet Sherlock Holmes and signal him exactly that, wouldn’t he?

Energetically, he turned around, got ready to utter a formal greeting – just to freeze, his mouth agape.

It was impossible. It _couldn’t_ be.

Before him stood the exact image of that fateful night. The hair in dark strands, a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead, and because of the summer heat, Sherlock had unbuttoned his shirt, a patch of hairless pale skin showing… John’s breath caught.

“The younger Holmes.” Mr Lestrade re-entered the house and was reaching out his hand before Sherlock had even arrived at the bottom of the staircase.

“Mr Lestrade.”

“Welcome.” The clergyman put on a show of vigorously shaking the hand that he had eventually got hold of. “And, if I may say so, how about a bath?”

Booming laughter sounded from the first floor, followed by the elder Holmes.

“Welcome, how about a bath. Excellent, Mr Lestrade. You’re unparalleled. This was the best reception I’ve ever heard.”

The vicar released Sherlock from his grip, ignoring the fact that the man had trained his eyes on the floor after the first, curt greeting. John exhaled. At least his own outright staring was not as obvious that way, and now that the elder brother was there, he would hopefully provide some distraction.

“You remember Mr Watson,” Mr Lestrade stated and John anticipated the obligatory slap on the back which promptly followed.

“Of course I do. Sherlock, you recall our friend from Florence, don’t you?”

Cold as ice. John felt the traces of the frosty look on every inch of his body, making him shudder inwardly.

“Vaguely,” Sherlock hissed.

“Mr Lavish wrote to me that you just got engaged, is that right?” Mycroft Holmes asked.

“Yes, I …” John stuttered, but then broke off because the gaze he met threatened to pierce right through him.

“Great news,” the elder brother continued without waiting for an answer. “Well, as Mr Lestrade correctly pointed out, my dear brother should take a bath after all this work. A very sensible idea, especially as he drives me to distraction, putting things exactly where I don’t want them. It’s more logical that way, he says.” He snorted. “Yet you have to find another place for the ablution because our boiler isn’t working.”

The elder brother did not pay attention to the furious look Sherlock threw him, and Mr Lestrade appeared to be equally unperturbed.

“The landowners around here are quite liberal, as you will be pleased to hear,” he said. “I know the perfect location.”

“What a wonderful country. Go, bathe, my dear brother, out with you! Ah, Mr Lestrade, make sure this city dweller becomes one with nature for once.”

The clergyman followed the call, but horrified, John felt that his jacket was grabbed and Mr Lestrade was pulling him outside the house as well.

“Come, come, Mr Watson, you don’t think we’ll leave you behind, do you?”

“No… actually, I don’t want to…”

“Who could lead the way but you? The lake is well hidden after all.”

John looked over his shoulder. Oh God, _he_ was leaving the house. Reluctant, yet driven outside by the good wishes of his brother, Sherlock sauntered down the path in an unhurried pace.

“You mean the pool?” John asked when Mr Lestrade let go of him. On the street he would not make a scene and continue arguing with a clergyman of all people. The vicar had anticipated that correctly, John admitted to himself.

“My profession forbids anything else but this destination.” Mr Lestrade grinned. “The Sacred Lake, wonderful.”

“But it’s too small.”

“We made a promise and now there’s no way back.”

He motioned John to go ahead and dutifully, he did as instructed, cursing his obedience. Briskly, he marched down the street and then into the wood. _Every step a willing descent into madness,_ flitted through John’s mind.

He listened to Mr Lestrade’s enthusiastic accounts of nature, garnished with philosophical insights, until the man, obviously becoming aware of his silent fellow wanderers, ran out of ideas at last. Intently John concentrated on the rustling of the trees to take his mind off his rising panic.

“It’s over there.” Relieved at having arrived, John stopped and nodded towards the shrubs a couple of steps away from the path. “Behind the undergrowth and the fern.”

“Then lead on.”

“I, well…” Unable to resist Mr Lestrade’s expectant face, John fought his way through the plants and then skidded down an embankment covered with pine needles.

At a loss what to do, he stared at the surface of the water. “That’s the pond. I wish it was bigger.”

Large enough to contain several human bodies and clear enough to reflect the sky it lay to their feet. Rainfalls had flooded  the surrounding grass which showed like an emerald path, tempting the feet towards the central pool.

“It’s a veritable lake,” Mr Lestrade said. “No excuse is necessary.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, John saw Sherlock sitting down on a dry patch, starting to untie his shoelaces, and John intently wished that the shoes would be everything he planned to take off.

“Willow-herb,” he heard the clergyman say before he stepped next to John. Unbuttoning his waistcoat, he murmured something else about the vegetation, but John could not process it in the least. Willow-herb? Who cared for willow-hearb? “Charming, very charming. The area where the reed is growing is always covered by water, isn’t it?”

John nodded, his mind simultaneously screaming at him to put a stop to all this – especially to the amount of undressing that was happening as a matter of course around him. Helplessly, he fixed his gaze on his feet, shuffling them to form little heaps of  needles.

“Don’t you want to join us, Mr Watson?”

“Erm…” he started. Someone ran into the water and John stepped back.

“The water’s perfect!” Mr Lestrade shouted. “Come in, Mr Watson.”

As if someone was pulling his strings, John looked up. Peripherally, he realised a head somewhere in the pond – this had to be the clergyman. Yet his eyes were involuntarily drawn to the man balancing on the rim of the pool.

As if Michelangelo himself had painted him.

Paralysed, John took in the pale and sinewy figure, standing out in sharp contrast to the intense green of the fern, and he could not have torn his eyes away for the life of him. Hovering on the bank was the first naked man he had seen since university, a picture of unbelievable perfection, and only slowly was John able to regain the authority of his wits.

 _Maybe this is for the best,_ he assured himself. The nagging feeling after the last encounter would subside now. For weeks his compulsive self-reproach had battled the craving that he had not managed to explore more of the other man’s body.

“Is it really worth it?” Sherlock asked, but after his last word, parts of the bank broke away. Inelegantly he plunged into the water and John could not suppress a smile despite his tension.

“We fulfilled our task,” Mr Lestrade remarked happily. “Now, Mr Watson, we can play.”

“Play?” John asked.

Sherlock emerged, snorting.

“Oh yes, we’re returning to nature,” the clergyman explained and swam towards the bank.

“And how’s that–” A splash of water on his suit cut John short, making him stagger backwards.

“Come in already,” Mr Lestrade commanded and stirred the water as if to bide his time for another attack.

John looked around. The air was warm. No one else was there but the pines surrounding them in a silent greeting to the sky. Perhaps Mr Lestrade was right and nature was simply too inviting. Slowly, John felt his resistance waning.

“Well, it won’t hurt to wash,” he said and turned around. What kind of normalcy could he ever achieve if he was too shy to undress in front of other men – friends, acquaintances, just what Sherlock was supposed to be – so why should he not start right here? His clothing formed a heap next to the clergyman’s and when he was done, he leapt into the water as quickly as he could.

“A bit like swimming in a salad bowl,” he noted after he had rotated in the pond together with the other men for a while.

“I think I swallowed a tadpole!” Mr Lestrade shouted.

John did a backstroke. It was not the best idea in such a small pool, so afterwards he tried a little dive for a change – only to resurface to a critically looking clergyman.

“Have you already forgotten?”

“What?” John managed to say, but then he sputtered under the surge of water the other man splashed in his face. “You…!”

On the spur of the moment he retaliated, first surprised by the fact that the clergyman accepted the challenge readily, but when Sherlock Holmes got accidentally involved in their splashing, both men paused to check if the younger Holmes took offence. He did not, and immediately something burst forth in him that was all too familiar to John.

Yet he could not ponder on the memory taking him back to a hotel room a year ago, because Sherlock started scooping water in his direction before he was plunged under water by Mr Lestrade. John briefly contemplated the pond’s still surface, but the moment the vicar emerged, something grabbed John’s legs and he was pulled under as well.

The world became a gurgling darkness, but the hands let him go. John stood up and wiped the water from his eyes, searching for his attacker, but he saw that Mr Lestrade had already undertaken it to avenge him. Amazed, he saw him chasing Sherlock through the pond and out of the water. They vanished in the shrubs and the rustling first receded but then became more pronounced again when Sherlock, shins dirtied with mud, jumped out of it and back into the pool.

“You wait, now it’s your turn,” Mr Lestrade threatened John from between the fern. John  took his chance and used his headstart to leave the pond at the opposite bank. After circling the water a couple of times, his pursuer and he rushed into the water to cool themselves, yet the chase continued regardless.

John felt his lungs burn. He evaded the attacks of the other two, did a crawl or a dive, or hid between the willow-herb, but although he was nearly delirious after some time, he did not want to stop. Cheering on Mr Lestrade when he snatched Sherlock’s jacket and vanished with it in the fern, John was just about to follow the two when he froze in his movement.

“Hello?”

A female voice! Half emerged from the pond, John listened carefully to find out from which direction it was coming. All of a sudden, the fern in front of him rustled audibly, but before John could beat a retreat, Sherlock dashed out of the plants and yanked him off his feet and into the water. Pulling him along until they reached the reedy area, he manoeuvred him between the blades.

“Oh, Mr Lestrade, what on earth happened?” It was Charlotte.

John spied through the plants and saw the clergyman scurry through the fern towards his clothes. Hectically he dressed, always circumspect to avoid detection.

“Dry yourself off, Mr Lestrade. In God’s name, all these colds result from not drying thoroughly.”

Charlotte again. John smiled when he saw the vicar stumble in the direction of the main path. He would surely not betray them, so all they had to do was wait until everyone was out of earshot.

“Careful,” the man behind him whispered insistently, and this one word was enough to let reality crash down on John again. Charlotte was his least concern! He was in a close embrace with Sherlock, who now pulled him even nearer.  He felt strained breathing on his throat, something poked in his lower back… _oh God!_

“Don’t –” John began, but the loosening of the grip around his waist only meant that the hand surfaced from the water to cover his mouth afterwards. John shook his head but the fingers pressed all the more vehemently.

“Charlotte, leave poor Mr Lestrade alone.”

 _Harriet!_ John’s heart began to race. He had to get out of this pool, had to get away…! Forcing himself to struggle against the arms clutching him, John’s determination became immediately undermined by an instinctive urge to achieve the exact opposite as tension was chased by the tickle of arousal spreading delightfully in him. That strength, the hardness rubbing against him... it was... he needed more of...

“Where?” A whisper in his ear.

John blinked. He had not even realised that he was not being silenced anymore. “I don’t understand...”

“Where are we going to meet again?” the baritone growled louder. Slowly clawing his way out of his confusion, John tried to formulate an answer in his head, but before he was able to make his vocal cords cooperate, all he could do was inhale sharply. Dextrous fingers had encircled his already half-hard manhood, giving it a light squeeze.

“Tell me where we’ll meet again.”

Minute movements where enough to break through the thin layer that was left of John’s resistance. Feeling his penis rapidly filling with blood, the rest of his body going slack in the man’s embrace, he needed but a second to reach his decision.

“Abandoned cottage... two miles to the south after the next bend of this path,” John gasped.

“Today, midnight,” were the last words he heard. Then John was just surrounded by the cold water and the sounds of someone stepping on the bank.

This time, he would not turn around and risk a glance. Because one thing was beyond debate: he would never be safe.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a hug for snogandagrope and her helpful hand when it comes to the English lingo :)


	8. The Cottage

“There you are! You’ll never guess who we met. And where!” Charlotte cried when John peeked into the parlour. “I bet you just talked about polo when you were with Mr Lestrade, but I’m aware of what he did afterwards.” She looked at John expectantly.

“I… yes… excuse me,” John answered and retreated again.

He told the maid to fire the boiler and run him a hot bath, but even after minutes of scrubbing the pond’s traces off his skin, he still could not get rid of the residual _Sherlock_. Somehow the man’s fingers, his touch had become ingrained in him and John slid underwater to drown the faint noises of the world. For a moment he succeeded in taking his mind off the encounter in the lake – when his thoughts immediately seized the chance to wander towards a different destination.

Panicking, John surfaced. The old cottage! Unbidden, his mind took the path through the fields and over the hills, stepped over the small brook and went along the narrow street. There, between overgrown privet hedges and birches, was the old building that had become disused when he had joined two tenancies.

Perhaps he would find someone who wanted to rent it, he had thought at that time, but its location far away from the main roads spoke against it. Still boarded up, the house had escaped John’s attention completely – until this afternoon. Only one remark was necessary, and the outline of the key he knew was in his writing desk’s upper drawer was branded on his mind.

John climbed out of the tub and dried himself. It didn’t matter where he had put the key. He wouldn’t need it.

“Dinner’s served!” Charlotte shouted through the door and John inhaled. Their normal evening routines would take his mind off things, he hoped, but Charlotte’s account of meeting naked Mr Lestrade transported John back to where he wanted to escape from.

“John, a riveting anecdote like that and you’re … absent somehow,” Charlotte chided him.

“You miss Cecilia, don’t you?” Harriet assumed, making John’s guilty conscience weigh him down even more. Meeting in the dead of the night? What on earth had driven him to make such a rash decision?

“Yes… yes, that’s the reason,” John answered hesitatingly. “Although I think I’m also rather tired. If you’ll excuse me?”

Without waiting for an answer, he stood up. His untouched food still on the table would serve as a reminder and a source for worries for the women, and so he racked his brain for a better explanation.

“I think it’s just indigestion. A little rest will do me good.”

Answering the sceptical looks with the usual smile, he left the room and had almost succeeded in walking straight to his bedroom, when his feet carried him into the drawing room after all. The drawer’s handle, some cautious rummaging around – and there was the big, bulky key. His fingers did not want to let go of it, not even when he had managed to reach his bedroom.

Standing by the window, he stared outside, saw Harriet and Charlotte walking across the terrace and towards the vegetable patches, and as long as the two roamed through the garden, John was convinced that no force in the world could make him endanger their safety. Yet when they returned to the house and just darkness prevailed, doubts started gnawing at the back of his mind.

If this was the only way of finding it out – whatever _it_ was? His chance of fulfilment and the only possibility to overcome the feeling of isolation that had accompanied him for his whole life?

John shook his head. What sense did it make to grasp for something that would be unattainable afterwards?

Dejected, he pulled over a chair and sat down. The key’s metal warm in his fist, his hands nevertheless looked almost ghostly pale when the moonlight occasionally peeked through the window.

Not ghostly. Dead. _As if there’s nothing left of life. But as long as there’s the chance..._

The jumbled mess of Mr Lavish’s words was becoming more and more of a threat each time they were repeated in John’s head. Disquieted, he rose again. He had to do something, _now_ , and he needed light.

The oil lamp would be perfect: no wind could extinguish it. Putting on his waxed jacket and pocketing some matches, he sneaked downstairs and outside the house, and only when he had reached the hedge framing the driveway, did his reason start to analyse his unwitting actions.

 _What am I doing here?_ he asked himself. His hand almost cramped around the handle of the lamp whilst slowly, his eyes accommodated to the weak light. He could not use the lamp as he was not yet out of sight.

_Out of sight for what? I have to return to the house, damn it!_

Something John was unable to control forced him onwards, though, directed his attention to the uneven path, loose gravel and later to the glow of the lamp on the ground. His thoughts just revolved around his fear of encountering a tenant, or worse, an armed poacher. He was already approaching the cottage when finally his initial objections made themselves known again.

No light could be seen and there was no sound save the distant call of a screech owl. John stopped some yards away from the house and listened carefully, yet he could only hear his own frantic heartbeat.

It was not too late. There was still time to call everything off, he persuaded himself, but at that very moment, the scrunching gravel told him than someone else had arrived.

“We should go inside,” the well-known voice murmured. “I take it you’ve got the key?”

Sherlock grabbed the lamp’s handle and the slight brush of fingers made John release it as if he had been burnt.

Walking towards the house, John fished around in his jacket’s pocket and the light guided him to the keyhole that seemed somewhat rusty but gave way after some forceful attempts to turn the key. Feeling the other man’s breath almost on his nape, John entered the dingy hallway.

“Lock it.”

The light waited until John was done, but then quickly vanished upstairs. Enshrouded in darkness, he heard the younger man walking around on the first floor.

 _Now I’m here,_ he encouraged himself, _and that means that I have to risk some kind of confrontation as everything else would be cowardly._ And that simply would not do anymore. He could not go on like that and most of all, Sherlock had to see some sense at last.

Carefully he felt his way to the banister, but after climbing the first stairs, light greeted him. Sherlock was waiting on the tread.

 _Waiting for me,_ John thought. Casting down his eyes, he cursed his bashfulness. There were surely better occasions for a talk than on the staircase, though, so he should bide his time.

“Over there.”

John did not need to look, he knew the structure of the house. Training his eyes on the grain of the floor boards, he followed the light down the narrow hallway, over the threshold into the room he was sure would still contain some of the furniture.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Sherlock placing the lamp on a chest of drawers and dropping a rucksack on the floor. Stubbornly, John refused to turn towards the only other piece of furniture he knew was in this particular room.

A bed. Simple, made of wood, a straw mattress, but when John dared to look up at last, it set off the immediate urge to flee. As if he had anticipated such a reaction, Sherlock’s hand snatched John’s sleeve to hold him back.

“Let me go…” Clumsily, John tried to wrench free from the grip and stumble out of the room at the same time, but when he already thought the door in his reach, he was deviated from his path by a brutal shove sending him into the wall.

“Why are you doing this? What sense does it make to fight it?”

The voice had something strange about it, John thought. Something different than the wrath he had just experienced. Determined, he steeled himself to face the other man for the first time that night, and what he saw was the former anger mixed with something even more devastating: a disappointment that was almost palpable.

“You know what you are,” Sherlock said accusingly.

Swallowing against the lump in his throat, John tried to answer him, just managing a quiet whisper instead. “That doesn’t mean that I want to live that way.”

A bitter laugh sounded through the room. “You think you’ve got a choice? You are here after all. You made your choice!”

_Did I? How am I supposed to know after the utter confusion on the way here?_

“Sherlock, please…” he begged, hoping that the other man would at least let him go.

Something really calmed him down, it seemed, and fascinated, John saw the grimness give way to an almost tender gaze. Sherlock drew back and the threatening pose suddenly only resembled an intimate nearness.

 _I could leave now,_ John reminded himself, but like so often during this night, his body did not want to obey. It just bathed in the gentleness of those eyes.

“Say it again.”

With some difficulty John clawed his way out of the mist of his perception.

“What?” he asked, distracted by Sherlock’s fingers that had started to busy themselves with unbuttoning the man’s shirt. The pale, smooth chest that had magically attracted him at the pond was divested before his eyes, making it almost impossible to piece together the order he had been given.

“Say my name.”

He felt the demand breathed against his lips and then the mouth grazed them whilst they were still trying to formulate the word.

“Sherlock,” he whispered against the mouth that was hesitatingly testing how far it could go. John was convinced that he should have protested when the lips became more demanding and the hands self-confidently took possession of his shirt, but his senses were completely reduced to the feeling of the other man’s skin on his. Nothing else appeared to be of importance – until he felt nimble fingers on his waistband.

Alarmed, he turned away. “No, I can’t.” He gasped for air.

“There is no need to worry,” that inimitable voice rasped and warm lips trailed along the crook of his neck. “I’ll acquaint you with everything.”

 _With what?_ The question almost leaving his mouth, John turned his head, catching the meaning the moment he saw the slightly suggestive leer Sherlock could not suppress.

Briefly John wanted to defend his honour, but in the end all he managed was a defeated dropping of his shoulders. Who was he fooling? Despite having studied medicine for two semesters, only rumours about the actual act had reached him.

Still in thought, he barely registered that Sherlock let go of him to bend down and open the leather fastenings of the rucksack. He pulled out something big to drape it over the mattress afterwards.

 _He’s making the bed,_ John’s reason informed him, and slowly the implication of what was happening reached him, his wildly thumping heart giving him the impression that it would shatter his ribs any second. Hectically he scanned the room for the whereabouts of his shirt.

“Don’t be afraid.” The voice was near again, just like the hands. They resumed their touching and with tiny gestures Sherlock erased every trace of insecurity – just a purposeful grazing of the crotch or the effortless opening of the trousers’ buttons was enough.

 _Perhaps feeling his hand on me for a last time could ease the need,_ flitted through John’s head when the slightest brush on his hardness made his arousal return with full force. He leaned against the wall, awaiting a new attack on his mouth, but in vain.

Instead, he looked down on dark curls and the hands that had shortly before pulled down his trousers encircled his penis to deftly push back the foreskin. What did he...?

When the lips made contact with the tip of his penis, the unbelievable sensation was briefly interrupted by the pain his head’s collision with the wall elicited.

“I... oh, God...” he panted, and in formerly undreamt of speed, John felt his hardness bulging. Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined something comparable, nothing was similar to the tongue’s caress and the stimulation by slick lips. John squeezed his eyes shut and tried to keep the tantalising pull in his groin under control.

Almost on the brink of giving in to the urge that coerced him to just let go, a sudden coldness ripped him out of his trance. Unable to focus his eyes, John’s mind processed just single images of the other man: he got up, undressed his trousers and rummaged around in the rucksack. Nothing of it made the slightest bit of sense to John until he felt a little bottle being pressed into his hand.

“Gun oil?” he read.

“Pure white oil,” Sherlock replied. “It’s particularly suitable.”

“For what?”

Sherlock held out his hand towards him and unthinkingly, John trickled some of the flask’s content into it.

“I would step out of your trousers first,” Sherlock said with a smile. When John followed the request, the other man leaned against the wall, supporting his weight on one of his elbows. “And now watch me.”

Mesmerised, John followed the path of Sherlock’s hand with his eyes, saw it diving into the valley of the buttocks, realised the legs spreading just a bit more, and then he observed with utter astonishment how the finger disappeared in the tiny opening. He had heard of something like that, but...

“Help me.”

Because he did not react immediately, Sherlock’s oily hand interlaced their fingers to engage them in a slick dance, and before John knew it, he felt the incredible warmth of the channel his finger had been pressed into.

The digit which had initially paved the way joined him and John imitated the movement it set.

“Now you,” the rough voice ordered and at the same time Sherlock withdrew his aid. Only briefly he bore the tentative brush of John’s second finger on the puckered skin, then he pushed against it and all but forced John to penetrate the outer barrier.

Fascinated, John turned and crooked his fingers, triggering a startled gasp before the body established a rhythm of lightly gyrating hips. They strained against the intrusion, demanding more and deeper penetration until the legs’ muscles began to tremble.

“Stop... please... stop,” Sherlock begged weakly, ragged breathing cutting short each word.

John let his fingers glide out of the other man, boundlessly astonished about what he had just done and somewhat self-conscious about his own nudity – a circumstance he had successfully ignored till then.

“You don’t need any guidance,” he heard, and the smile, the embrace, the kiss – each by itself would have already been disarming enough. Together, they made it impossible to end this madness, and instead John let himself be pulled towards the bed.

His resistance on the wane, he felt it crumbling completely with every additional inch of skin contact, and when the tongue stopped its subtle entanglement with his and the rubbing of the sensitive genitalia was brought to an end, he could barely withhold an instinctive complaint. Sherlock rolled them over, getting on all fours.

“Please, now…” he growled and John gritted his teeth. This was the point of no return... from here on he would...

John’s mind spun. He could not think any more. In fact, he did not _want_ to think any more.

First groping for the flask that had landed somewhere on the bed in the heat of the moment and then bathing his hands and phallus in a sea of oil, John realised that there seemed to be no time for skilfulness either.

Feverishly drawn to the man under him, John positioned his penis and pushed through the tight ring into the adjoining heat. He paused, attempting to advance slowly despite the raving need to dash forwards, yet the excitingly new feeling of that seductive heat stripped him of the last vestiges of restraint. It was too much.

 _Not enough,_ the incessant craving instructed him, driving him on to seek more contact with the almost brutal grasp clutching his manhood. Disconnected from reality, John saw his hardness disappearing in Sherlock’s body over and over again, the frenzy of the movements gradually becoming a blurred confusion. With wild lust the only remaining sensation, John could do nothing but let himself be carried away, and although peripherally he became aware of the thrill of pleasure accumulating deep inside of him, his mind and body yielded to it unbidden, dissolving in a sudden blaze of pure rapture.

At some point, when the jerking of his hips turned less convulsive, he heard his own breathing resounding in his head again, alongside the noise of his blood in his ears. But it was only after his softening penis had slipped out of the opening that John consciously perceived anything around him, and immediately, embarrassment cast a damp on him.

 _I’m such an amateur,_ he thought. Not that he could draw any comparison to similar events, yet he was convinced that this had been a rather short performance.

“I’m sorry.” He sat down on his heels. “I don’t know… I –”

“You _do_ know,” Sherlock interjected and dropped on the mattress to roll on his back. Appreciatively writhing under John’s gaze, he stretched out, his erection like a trophy between the black curls surrounding it. Despite flaunting his assets so self-confidently, he nevertheless seemed to be surprised when John immediately reached out his hand.

 _Does he really assume that anyone could resist such an offer?_ John asked himself. It felt too good to rub the rigid manhood with an oily hand, and above all, it looked stunningly arousing when the unmistakeable signs of passion flashed through this perfect body. Sherlock’s juices spread over John’s hand and briefly he enjoyed the power to make this withdrawn man give himself up like that.

Without thought, he wiped his fingers on the blanket. If one tried to clean the wool, it would most likely become felted, so there should… John froze. Transported back to reality by his last thought, he could not shake the feeling that he had been doused with cold water.

Everything that had been happening had not been him. How could it? Only the sudden concern for the blanket – that was his world.

“I wasn’t wrong about you.”

John answered that statement with the small smile he was used to, feeling incredibly weak at the same time.

“When will we see each other again?” Sherlock continued.

Evading the expectant look, John climbed off the bed. “We should dress first.”

Yes, Sherlock had been right about him, John admitted to himself. But just partly. What was now implied in the question – regular conspiratorial meetings, constant fear – was far beyond everything he had planned for his life.

Quietly, they collected their clothes and Sherlock carelessly stuffed the blanket back into the rucksack whilst John lit the lamp. This time, he led the way downstairs, letting his hand rest on the door handle after he turned the key in the lock.

“It was…” John began and braved those eyes which, although fathomless themselves, seemed to search something in him. “I… I would like you to know that I’m thankful for this experience. And I’m convinced that it won’t impede a civilised contact.” He put out his hand. “We can be good neighbours.”

Silence stretched so painfully long that John had nearly let his hand sink again, when Sherlock started to speak at last.

“If you wish.” Just like the look before, the voice betrayed hardly any emotions, but as their fingers touched, John realised what kind of absurd situation he had brought about. The hands! The things they had done with them!

Pulling himself together, he pressed the door handle and motioned the other man outside. It was not necessary to keep the lamp alight because the sky had cleared and the moon was now illuminating the still summer night. For a while, they calmly walked along the gravelly path.

“We cannot avoid running across each other,” Sherlock said and John felt his hands clenching to fists. He had to be steadfast now.

“Why should we?”

“Oh yes, I forgot. We’re good neighbours,” Sherlock mocked. “Sorry,” he added in a low voice, “I’m just…”

“Mmh?” John was sure that he would not have been able to utter anything else but this noncommittal sound.

“It’s not important.”

The wistfulness speaking of this sentence that was barely more than a sigh tugged at John, made his fingers itch and drove him to touch the other man despite his initial resolve not to. So great was the urge that John did not even flinch when Sherlock turned around and gripped him by his shoulders.

“John.”

He answered the look fixing him and heard the deep breath. Felt the lips and their insistent request for response. Yet he forced himself not to react, not to mirror the groping and instead remain frozen in the commencing embrace.

Seconds later, though, when Sherlock had already let go of him and had jumped over the low stone wall framing the path, John still felt the desperate wish to reach out to the figure that was becoming just a faraway shadow on the meadow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luckily the same as last year: snogandagrope saves the world from my faulty English.


	9. Tennis

Another one of those dreadful engagement calls – so much even John could admit to himself – and Mrs Butterworth, who had insisted on getting to know Cecilia, had to live with the fact that the feeling was not mutual. Most of all that Cecilia did not want to talk about hydrangeas and how they changed their colour were they planted near to the coast. To John’s astonishment Harriet seemed to be even less interested in what was discussed.

John’s attempts to act as an intermediary failed miserably and in the end Charlotte pretended to have to run an urgent errand in Summer Street to put an end to the slow conversation. The party from Windy Corner prepared to leave, but when Harriet and Cecilia were waiting in the driveway, Charlotte pulled John back into the cloakroom.

“What is wrong with her?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Cecilia. She’s absolutely impossible.”

“Maybe she’s tired,” John hedged. “Mrs Butterworth is not a gifted conversationalist.”

“You loved her when you were a boy,” Charlotte blustered. “For her cake you would have _walked_ to London.”

“Cecilia has got high expectations of everyone.” John sighed. “It’s part of her ideals _._ ”

 _So what on earth is she doing with me?_ he thought.

“Since she’s returned from London, she appears to be dissatisfied. Except when she’s with Harriet, that is.” Charlotte pinned her hat with a needle and John watched her dumbly, clenching his teeth. There was no sense in discussing with her. She was right.

“It is a complete mystery to me why you want to marry her,” she continued. “It’s not as if you still have to find a mother for Harriet.”

John frowned. That was not what this was about, was it?

“Well, it’s up to you, dear nephew. Let’s rather talk about Sir Harry’s new tenants, those Holmes brothers.” Charlotte stepped into the hallway and observed herself in the mirror.

“We met in Florence,” John said and hoped that the answer would suffice.

“And how well did you know them?”

“Vaguely.” John could not suppress a flash of guilt when quoting Sherlock.

“I met the older brother,” she explained, “and I’m convinced that the man is the most valuable addition of intellectual material to Summer Street since the arrival of Mr Lestrade.”

“Well...”

“A ray of hope for our little community. We could establish our own little salon. Harriet would also benefit.”

John remained silent. An argument stressing the wellbeing of his sister could not be countered.

“I’ll invite him for tennis on Sunday,” Charlotte announced. “Mr Lestrade should also be there and of course the younger brother – he’s perfect for a match in case Harriet prefers Cecilia’s company.”

“Erm, I...” John started, but Charlotte did not appear to be listening to him anymore.

“He’s a bit quiet, that young man... there’s something about him...”

“What is it?” John asked.

“When Mr Holmes and I were talking, he just stood there. The elder brother was giving me an account of his work for the press. At one point his research had made it necessary to investigate a mine and he said that nothing in his life had affected him more than the fate of the children that were working there in inhumanly conditions. His memories overwhelmed him and I could see tears in his eyes – when the brother just took him in his arm. It was a gesture so intimate, and also somewhat unexpected, that I barely knew what to say.”

She looked at John pensively, but all John could think was that the ghosts were returning. They had inhabited Italy and they were taking possession of his home as well. The sacred lake would never be the same; the cottage would never be let because of them. And on Sunday they would even stop off at Windy Corner.

Sullenly, John followed Charlotte towards the front door. There was no use in getting overly excited about this – he had already planned to bear everything with stoic composure and this was the frame of mind he should adhere to.

 _I’m not going to be afraid,_ he convinced himself, and on Sunday, standing in the drawing room and looking at the framed picture of St John, he was still of that conviction.

He tore his eyes away from the print and looked outside. Cecilia was slowly walking across the terrace and just about to turn the page in a book. It seemed to be new – perhaps Charlotte had bought it at the station to placate Cecilia.

“John, you have to change!” Harriet exclaimed even before she entered the drawing room. “Cecilia wants to read and Charlotte went for a walk with Mr Lestrade. We need someone for a double.”

John winced inwardly. So the guests had already arrived and from that very moment on, the madness was taking its course. He observed his sister saunter out of the room, but in turn could not muster more than a slow shuffle, dragging his feet upstairs to dress in linen trousers and a lightweight shirt. It was not unbearably hot outside, with temperatures just high enough to make sport demanding.  

John tied his shoelaces, retrieved a couple of tennis balls from his wardrobe and balanced them downstairs and out of the house. A confrontation with the younger Holmes would simply be another exercise in concentration.

“Mr Watson, how generous of your aunt to invite us here,” John heard and he whipped around, the tennis balls bouncing over the terrace as a result.

Like a lifeline, John grabbed the hand extended to him and shook it, pointedly ignoring the man next to Mycroft Holmes. Yet good manners demanded a welcome of the brother as well, and John was convinced that the cursory glance down the man’s figure, along the slightly too tight trousers, had been registered.

Damning his weakness, John tried to rein his straying eyes in as he realised with great astonishment that Sherlock was behaving with utmost courtesy. He shook hands just briefly, nodded, and then went to pick up the scattered tennis balls.

 _I’m so pathetic,_ John thought. _I should be ashamed of myself._

Bewildered, he saw that nothing of the despondency which had marked their goodbye remained, and because he was lacking other ways to describe it, John’s mind dug up images from Italy.

There he had seen that energy. Sherlock wanted to live, that was it. And from the moment on he took the racket, it became obvious that he also wanted to win at tennis -- with a vehemence that neither Mycroft Holmes nor John could counter.

“Your brother plays well,” John remarked when the elder brother had missed yet another serve.

“Actually he doesn’t,” he answered breathlessly. “But today seems to be his lucky day. Your sister hardly needs to run.”

John got the next serve, but although Mycroft and he fought back vigorously, they had to accept defeat in the end. The teams went to the net to shake hot and sweaty hands, and John could not let go of the contact as quickly as he would have wished to. He was still debating with himself if he had appeared obtrusive – when suddenly Cecilia’s voice sounded through the garden.

Averting his eyes and studying his racket instead, John forced himself to relax to avoid a blush or worse. Good God, Sherlock was behaving perfectly gentlemanlike and he himself could not even manage a handshake without second thoughts.

“This novel is so bad, it’s appalling,” Cecilia said, parading alongside the court whilst Mycroft attempted some serves, all of them landing in the shrubbery.

“Three split infinitives in one passage! John, you mustn’t miss this.”

John saw the elder Holmes and Harriet vanish between the cherry laurel on their search for lost tennis balls. Cecilia in turn had halted under a tree, looking over to him expectantly, and dutifully John walked to her to sit down on the grass at her feet.

“The scene plays in Florence,” she announced.

“Wait!” Sherlock jumped over the net and also aimed for the tree, letting himself drop on the ground when he reached it. “Already tired?” he asked John challengingly.

“Certainly not,” John retorted and tried to muster some honest indignation.

“And how does it feel to be in the inferior position?”

John was speechless. Such an inconspicuous sentence, but Sherlock had managed to load it with so much innuendo that John had problems keeping his composure.

“You aren’t such a good player.” Seeking his salvation in the offensive, John cleared his throat as that sentence had sounded rather croaked. “You had the sun in your back and it blinded me.”

“I never claimed to be a good player,” Sherlock said and grinned. “And I’m sorry that you were dazzled.”

“The scene plays in Florence,” Cecilia repeated, this time a bit louder. “Joan hurried along the street –”

“By whom is it? The novel, I mean,” Sherlock asked.

Irritated, Cecilia looked up. “Some unknown hack. Lavish, Charles Lavish.”

John burst out laughing. “My Mr Lavish?” he called. “Mr Holmes, you remember the old author from the Pensione Bertolini?”

“Of course I do. It was him who recommended us to Sir Harry. I’m surprised you forgot.”

 _Rather repressed the thought,_ John admitted to himself. “Well, then we owe it to him to read the book, I’d say.”

“All modern novels are rubbish,” Cecilia stated, the annoyance in her voice clearly discernible. The lacking attention of her listeners was a trial of patience for her, so much John could see, but for reasons he could not explain, he felt unwilling to play his usual soothing part. Instead, his eyes were drawn to Sherlock’s head that almost touched his knee. He stared at the dark curls and his reason was aware of the fact that there would never be another opportunity to comb through that hair again, but his mind’s eye displayed it to him so vividly that John thought to really touch the locks.

Fortunately, before it actually reached out, John pulled back his hand.

“How do you like our view?” he asked to distract himself. Sherlock shrugged.

“There’s no difference, I don’t care for views.”

“How can one not care for views?”

“They’re all the same. Air, distance...” Sherlock declared with an undirected wave of his hand.

“There’s an absurd part about a view in the novel,” Cecilia interjected.

“Mycroft always says that the only view that counts is the blue sky straight over our heads,” Sherlock continued unerringly, and instead of an answer, Cecilia closed the novel with a bang.

“I won’t impose Mr Lavish on you anymore.”

Finally John woke up from his reverie, cursing his inattentiveness.

“No, please Cecilia, do go on. Read the part about the view.” He motioned her to give him the book. “Mr Holmes, go and retrieve tennis balls if you cannot contain yourself.”

Sherlock glanced at him in mock consternation – and stayed.

“Which page do you want me to open?” John asked Cecilia.

“Chapter two, if needs must.”

He turned the pages and upon finding the right one, he curiously skimmed the first two sentences.

_Oh no. That was impossible._

Panicking, John slammed the book shut. “You were right, it’s really not worth reading. Downright ridiculous, they shouldn’t print something like that.”

Before he could add anything else, though, Cecilia snatched the book from his hands, purposefully found the right chapter again and straightened to assume a pose of feigned importance.

“Lost in thought and alone, Sergio remained on the hillside. Below him stretched the sweet Tuscan landscape, dotted with little villages. It was summer.”

John felt his entire body become paralysed. Sweat collected on his forehead.

“A golden glow surrounded him. The towers of Florence in the distance, barley like the heaving sea around him. First he did not hear Joan.”

Cecilia stopped to collect herself in the face of what she clearly thought to be mindless drivel, but regardless of how much she was distracted by the content, John was convinced that if she looked at him, she would know that something was wrong. Alarmed, he turned his head – and was immediately caught up in Sherlock’s gaze.

“No explanation was needed, no declaration as it is part of formal lovers’ rituals. He just strode to her and took her in his manly arms.”

Silence. The clear grey eyes of his opponent had gripped him and John thought he would never be able to look away – until a wink disrupted the connection.

“No, that wasn’t the part I was searching for. There’s another, much more amusing one, somewhere in the back.” She flipped through the book and John took his chance to prepare his escape.

“What about tea?” he asked, but his voice caught.

“The maid’s not here, she had to go to a funeral,” Charlotte’s voice sounded from behind John. He turned around and saw that in addition to her and Mr Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes and Harriet had also returned. “And the cook will only be there in the evening, so it’s on us to cater for ourselves.”

“On such a beautiful day?” the clergyman asked and raised an amused eyebrow. “Now, Miss Bartlett, there is surely a better solution. May I suggest we drive to Summer Street? I have an assortment of delicious pastry and a priceless gem living next door. Mrs Hudson always starts boiling the kettle at the very glimpse of me.”

The party was delighted – everyone except John, who ogled the book Cecilia was still holding in her hands.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t join you, there are some urgent letters I have to write today,” he excused himself.

“Oh no, John!” Harriet exclaimed, but before anyone else could form a protest, John bowed and marched into the house. Not under any circumstances would he endure another public reading of that novel.

For appearances’ sake, he sat down at his desk and listened to everyone getting prepared to leave. At one point Harriet had finally decided on her dress and it became silent – too silent for John’s thoughts that directly started to conjure up disquieting scenarios.

Mr Lavish had seen them! That must have been the reason why he had been so busy writing down something in his notebook, John thought, and felt embarrassment leaving a hot flush on his face. But for whatever reason the old man had included his observations in his novel, their true nature would surely stay a secret, John was able to convince himself with some effort. It would be a disaster for the sales of book if the readers knew the author was writing about two men.

John’s taxed nerves were calming down along his heart rate. No one could prove anything, there was no reason to be afraid, and the proximity of Sherlock Holmes would become easier to bear given time. Today had not been an overly promising overture, John reckoned, but there had been improvements.

Trying to relax, he leaned into his chair. A creaking in the house – perhaps the old bars – but the rest was blessed silence. John felt his eyes drooping, when suddenly there were more noises and this time they came from the hallway. Something rumbled right in front of the door, causing John to jump up.

Someone was there.

Alarmed, he opened the door and then stepped into the dim hallway.

“Charlotte?” he asked in the direction of the entrance.

“No, Joan, it’s me, Sergio.”

Startled, John turned around. In the shadow of the hall clock Sherlock leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and his smirk was even visible in the low light. “I cannot take it any longer, I’m yearning for you,” he added and chuckled.

John felt acute exasperation paralysing him. If the ridicule was unavoidable, so be it.

“The parallels didn’t escape me,” John mumbled.

“I thought it was entertaining.” Sherlock eased his way out of the shadow, causing an automatic step backwards in John.

“That’s hardly a surprise.’ John sighed. ‘What are you doing here? Did you forget something?”

A moment of earnest contemplation that was clearly a sham, and then Sherlock came to a seemingly spontaneous decision.

“If you want to describe it like that, _Joan_ ,” he mocked. “But it’s rather the opposite. I _know_ my way around here as I gave myself a little tour of the house.”

John felt a frown forming. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Without even looking backwards, Sherlock started taking tiny steps towards the staircase.

“Please remember that you…” John breathed in and let the rest of the sentence drown in a strained exhalation. The look on the other man’s face showed exactly what he was thinking – and clearly this did not involve any of their agreements or the fear of someone surprising them. John put his hands in his pockets. Whatever Sherlock planned to do, he would not be part of it.

“I think tennis was rather exerting,” Sherlock declared and opened his cufflinks. “I should change. Will your bedroom do? I came across it on my way through the house.”

Unbelievingly John registered the shirt being unbuttoned and then Sherlock carelessly shrugged out of his jacket and shirt and dropped them on the lowest step. _You miserable wretch!_ John thought, but he could not say it, he just watched Sherlock climbing the stairs backwards.

“Mmh, I still feel somewhat warm.”

John collected the clothes and looked up. Already having arrived on the first floor, Sherlock pulled his vest over his head and threw it on the top step. _A damn trail!_

“I won’t…” John started, but the other man turned around and disappeared down the hallway. Briefly tempted to cry out in frustration, John stomped upstairs. He grabbed the vest that was still warm and even slightly sweaty through sport and documenting the smell of its owner. Before John knew it, he had given it an involuntary sniff.

Immediately an amused grunt reached him from the side and almost simultaneously linen shoes clattered on the floor in front of John.

“That’s enough,” he commanded whilst he was picking up the shoes, yet a glance down the hallway showed that Sherlock calmly continued to unfasten his trousers. He stepped out of them and nodded towards John’s room before disappearing in it.

Feeling the hands cramping around the clothes, John marched towards the trousers to retrieve them. Not this time. _This time I’m not going to fall prey to my fatal weakness,_ he convinced himself. He straightened but hesitated a moment before he entered his room.

 _It’s my room, damn it!_ he swore, and took the remaining steps.

“We had an understanding,” he blurted out, quickly closing the door. “This… thing is over. I meant what I said.”

He scanned the floor for underwear or socks, or anything else that might make it unnecessary to establish eye contact.

“So did I.”

Bewildered, John raised his head. “What does that –?”

“What I just told you. I meant it,” Sherlock said. “It’s true.”

Slowly, he advanced towards John, who fervently wished he could do something else apart from braving the fierce look that stripped him of the ability to stir.

“I can’t take it any longer,” Sherlock growled.

The clothes slipped from John’s hands when Sherlock bent down and breathed in, rubbing his nose along John’s hair.

“I’m yearning for you,” he whispered in John’s ear and then the breathing became a touch when lips cautiously kissed an invisible path down John’s throat. “So much that it almost kills me.”

Skilled fingers opened his cuffs. Hands and mouth continued their exploration together and inspected every inch that was exposed after the shirt had been unbuttoned. Unresistingly John let himself be manoeuvred towards the bed, neither able to halt the undressing of his shirt nor the migrating hands that drew him nearer in an embrace that was becoming a consummate caress.

John stared at the slender shoulders in front of his eyes, saw the flexing of the muscles, and felt the finger on his waistband. He needed to touch too, but he would not raise a finger, not after he had sworn...

Sherlock knelt down and the flash of relief was directly followed by the realisation the he only wanted to continue the search for every last button that had not been opened. His pronounced hardness was freed from the constraints of his underwear and even the slight rubbing of the fabric against his sensitised skin drove him to distraction.

“And at least a part of you thinks the same as me.”

Sherlock observed the erection, clearly satisfied with what he saw and without further warning, he appreciatively licked the phallus from its root to the overly sensitive tip.

“Oh God, yes!” John panted, and he would have done everything to ensure the tongue’s return to the place it was about to leave. He obeyed the push of the hands and the moment his legs made contact with the bed, he sank down on it without thinking.

There it was again, the tongue, but it did not stay for a long time, and instead interrupted the playful encircling of his glans and followed the trail of belly hair. John groaned a surprised reply to the grazing teeth on his nipple when suddenly the mattress dipped – Sherlock had got on the bed as well.

John’s neglected manhood was encompassed by warm, nimble fingers, just as arousing as the mouth had been, and John squeezed his eyes shut, trying to cope with the onslaught of sensation.

“You say yes?” the voice growled in his ear again and the tongue tickled the shell of his ear in a delightfully stimulating twirl.

John just nodded. He did not care what he was giving his approval to as everything was narrowed down to the one desire: he needed more of the electrifying body contact, more of the skin that was still too far away in so many places, yet when he grabbed the shoulders of the man hovering above him to align their bodies at last, Sherlock drew back.

John blinked, caught up in a confusion of impressions, because before he could grasp the sight of the familiar bottle, an oily hand already touched his erection lightly, too lightly to cause any real friction.

“Sherlock, please,” he begged to end his torment, but instead of firmer fingers, his mind had to process a brutally tight grip around his penis. All it took was a shifting of Sherlock’s body, and the warmth turned to heat so pronounced that John thought he was perishing that very second.

Unbelievingly he saw his hardness disappear in the other man, a display so terrifyingly arousing that panic and passion briefly balanced each other. Then Sherlock had impaled himself completely on the phallus and began to move.

“Sher–” John exclaimed, but some tentative gyration of the hips took his breath away, becoming sensual torture the braver they progressed. Accepting his defeat, John let himself be ridden, felt lust coursing through him in unknown ways, until the cavern surrounding his manhood changed, quivering in feverish reflexes. With some effort, John got his bearings and focused on Sherlock, saw him touching himself and reaching his climax, lost in complete ecstasy, but biting back a moan.

 _So beautiful, so._.. John tried to hold on to something and just found the bed sheet. It had to suffice as a means to ground him when his mind was disconnected from his helplessly jerking body. Every fibre demanding the discharge of the boundless energy in him, he let it flare up at last and erupted in blissful rapture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the speedbetaing, snogandagrope. You're a marvel!


	10. Lies

Breathlessly and in quiet awe John observed the man who showed not the slightest inclination to break their link. The lean, muscular frame with the almost hairless chest as a tempting focal point for his eyes – in this moment Sherlock solely existed for him.

_My dream. And nothing but make-believe._

Everything in John lamented the loss when Sherlock bent down and the warmth around his manhood disappeared.

_A little longer, just a fraction of a moment, stay..._

Consoled by the soft mouth turning a gently tingling kiss into a greedy campaign of conquest, John seized the opportunity to rub their bodies against each other one more time and record every muscle activity. Remember the curve of the lips. The sound of Sherlock breathing.

He coaxed the tongue to enter a game of caress and challenge, but underneath the residual buzz of arousal, somewhere deep inside of him the unavoidable anguish lurked, making itself heard with nagging persistence.

With a heavy heart John broke the kiss.

“We can’t leave the room behind like this,” he said. Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Sherlock dropped on the mattress. He lingered there, a contented boneless heap, and even when John stood up and tugged at the sheet, he just got up reluctantly.

“We should… clean ourselves as well,” John remarked and stepped to the wardrobe to retrieve a clean sheet.

“You’re a very attentive host,” Sherlock taunted him, but caught the clean sheet John tossed at him.

“I’ll be back soon.”

Hastily John threw on his trousers and a shirt in such a hurry that he did not realise he was not wearing any socks until he had reached the hallway. On his way to the cellar, his feet cooled down considerably, but there was no time for any delay; he had to function until everything was done.

He stuffed the bed sheet into the oven, adding some kindling for good measure. With trembling hands he lit a match and carefully placed it between the easily flammable strands, and only when the wood and the fabric caught fire at last did John breathe in properly for the first time since he had left the bed.

Exhausted, he sat down on the bumpy stones of the cellar floor and leaned against the wall. Letting his mind be soothed by the dancing flames in the oven, he stared into the opening until there was just smouldering ash left.

 _What a suitable image,_ he thought grimly when the last glow died out.

From upstairs, the sound of the piano sounded through the house. Sherlock had gone to the parlour and was playing…? John listened carefully. Chopin, what else. Now of all moments he played a waltz that was just as rousing as everything else Sherlock did.

Blinking, John breathed in through his nose and supported his head on his knees. A swell of the music tore right through him, reminding him that it would end exactly like he had anticipated it to be the case: Sherlock had presented him a world where everything was new and irresistible, and this magical present would be snatched from John’s hand the moment he accepted it.

Surreptitiously John wiped his eyes dry. Even if he had never met Sherlock, listening to the music he was playing would be enough to know him. How could he have not seen it the first time he had heard him? It was madness to think there could ever be something like a civilised distance between them. Sherlock would not allow it. It was not in his nature to be a coward.

 _And it is time I stop being one,_ John thought. Sherlock deserved something better. And both of them needed peace at last.

John inhaled as deeply as it was possible with a chest that felt utterly constricted. He heaved himself up, returned to his room and dressed, yet before he crossed the threshold to the parlour, he hesitated. For a moment he wanted to watch him play, completely at one with the music but effortlessly occupying the whole room with his presence.

As if he had sensed him, Sherlock raised his head and stopped abruptly when their eyes met.

 _He’ll know immediately,_ flashed through John’s mind and quickly entered the room, closing the door with a bang to almost run to the grand piano afterwards. As expected, Sherlock got up but halted the moment he saw that John used the instrument as a barrier between them.

“What is it? Tell me!” he demanded and John gave a start.

“I’m sorry, very sorry,” he replied quietly, still trying to brace himself. “I thought about it, we… we’re too different. Please, let me go. Just forget that I was so reckless.”

Sherlock prepared to walk around the piano. He even did not stop when John raised a warning hand, so their paths resulted in a farcical flight around the instrument until Sherlock paused eventually.

“Our meeting came too late. Italy, all of that… it doesn’t lead anywhere,” John explained dejectedly. “I can’t change my life.”

“But I –”

“It’s too late,” John interjected, clutching the polished wood to avoid being stricken down by Sherlock’s pleading look.

“John, there’s just darkness for me out there,” he said bitterly. “You cannot simply send me away.”

The firm voice broken, nothing of the previous hours’ euphoria was left. John fought against the urge to hasten around the instrument and offer some kind of comfort, anything, and be it just a tiny gesture, to banish the hopelessness from Sherlock’s face.

But why should he? There _was_ only hopelessness.

“You have to go. And please don’t come back.”

He dropped his gaze to study the doilies Charlotte had arranged on the black surface. After a while, he heard steps, the door was opened, and then the dull noise of the closing entrance resounded through the house.

He was gone. Not entirely, though, because he had left something behind that caused a strange calm in John. Sherlock was not the only one marching into nothingness, the same was true for himself. The only thing left to do now was to prevent the ruin of yet another person.

Stone still he sat in his chair, waiting for life to stir in the house again. Hours passed until he heard Harriet’s high pitched laughter, accompanied by Cecilia’s voice that was always balanced between amusement and slight reproach.

John got up to light some candles. The room appeared solemn in the flames’ glow – an oddly fitting atmosphere, he thought and opened the door.

“Cecilia?”

Surprised the two women turned around.

“John, here you are!” Cecilia exclaimed, clearly pleased. She put down her hat on the chest of drawers.

“I... would like to talk to you, alone.”

The two women exchanged a short, questioning look and subsequently Harriet shrugged.

“Of course.” Cecilia followed him into the room. Her searching eyes unsettled John so much that he briefly entertained the thought of retracting his decision.

 _Coward!_ he admonished himself. It was time to start anew.

“We have to talk about our engagement...” he started.

“Is there yet another invitation?” she asked and her face fell. “I thought by now I knew the entire neighbourhood.”

“No, no, that’s not it,” John hastened to say. “It’s... perhaps it has something to do with those calls as well. At least with how they proceeded.”

Cecilia frowned, obviously at a loss what to say.

“You and I, we don’t match,” he explained. “And I think you know that. But for reasons I can’t discern, you want to marry me regardless.”

Dumbfounded, Cecilia opened her mouth but could not utter a word.

“I’ll never be the man you want me to be,” John continued. “And I’ll never feel at home in your London circles. You’d surround us with books and art, but that’s not me, I’m... a simple man.” He dropped his head. “I should have never asked you to marry me. It was my fault.”

“Am I getting you right? You want to end our engagement?” she asked incredulously.

“We can’t marry, and one day you’ll thank me for that. We wouldn’t be the fabulous couple you envisioned us to be, believe me.”

“But what about our plans? What is Harriet going to say?”

“You don’t need me for your plans. You’re a respectable woman, your position in society is undisputed and you don’t need a husband. I would just be a useless accessory. Harriet will understand.”

“But I wanted her to meet so many interesting people,” Cecilia cried. “And what about her future? I know at least half a dozen eligible young men suitable for her. She could choose among some of the most admired bachelors in the whole of London. John, have you thought about her education at all? A young woman like her, so receptive, so interested – she’ll wither away in the countryside!”

“I… erm…” John could not shake the impression that he had lost track at some point of their conversation.

“She has begun to read serious books, she discusses them so inspiringly and asks such intelligent questions. John, how can you put a stop to all of that?” Cecilia complained.

Harriet and serious books? John studied the woman in front of him who seemed to lose her composure after all, especially after her last outburst, and he shook his head disbelievingly. Why had he not realised this before? This was not about him. What Charlotte had criticised him for – that he married to find a mother for Harriet – was really not necessary any more.

“Cecilia, please, I’m sorry, you misunderstood!” He closed the distance between them and took her hand. “I would never put myself between you and Harriet.”

Immediately he saw relief spreading on her face.

“Harriet is old enough and next year our parents’ testament gives her the control over her money. If it’s her wish, she can go to London with you as I cannot think of a better mentor than you.”

The hand he was clutching lost all its tension, just like Cecilia’s eyes which had been blinking nervously before.

“No one is to know about our… separation, though. We won’t make it public,” she said, her demeanour perfectly composed again. “At least not immediately.”

“You can trust me in that,” John replied. “All of this is my fault, you can demand of me whatever you want. I’ll take full responsibility when people hear about it.”

She nodded and managed a small smile on top of all, sending John’s guilty conscience to new, painful heights. Everyone had been hurt in this damn affair, everyone! And only because he had lost sight of who he really was – the reliable guardian, the helpful friend. Not the liar and fraud.

Yet now he had got the chance to revive the man he once was. All he had to do was keep a distance, just like before, and never enter a close relationship of any kind.

Before that could happen, though, he would have to endure his sister’s fierce reproach. Unwilling to start right then, John did not follow Cecilia out of the room, but went to the window to stare outside.

Darkness. And as if the night had decided to provide evidence of Sherlock’s prediction, there was not a single star to be seen.

 _I’ll find a way out,_ John thought, bracing himself to face his sister. Yet even after he had endured her accusations and at least partly taken up his normal life again, he had the impression that even during the light of day, darkness was surrounding him. So tightly did it wrap itself around him that John thought to lose his mind as the weeks progressed.

Feeling abandoned in a dark valley he would never escape again, John was more and more convinced that he had to do something if he wanted to survive this. He had to see something else, had to stop avoiding the neighbours and most of all, he needed light.

And there was one man who knew exactly what to do when plagued by an affliction.

The moment he remembered Charles Lavish’s words, John knew that he was saved and before he had received an answer to the letter he had sent to him, he began with his preparations. John expected Mr Lavish to gladly accept him as a travel companion and Greece was far away enough to establish a distance to what had happened and focus on what was truly important in his life.

The neighbours would have a year to gossip at their hearts’ content, and with time his failed engagement would just become a passing note.

John went to London to get the necessary items for the journey, and roaming through the shops at Haymarket, he even bought a guide book – vividly picturing Mr Lavish’s exasperation should he catch him with it. It felt good, though, to prepare for something that would take him away from Harriet’s scowls and Charlotte’s soothing words that could not belie the fact that she was glad about the broken engagement.

Even on the train back home, anticipation prevailed and he curiously leafed through the guide book, but when he put his purchases into the carriage that was to take him to Windy Corner, he already felt a leaden heaviness settling on him.

 _So that’s home now,_ he thought dismally. Sadness and guilt. It did not come as a surprise that nothing truly held him here.

The evening was foggy above all, the searchlight of the carriage floating over mud and puddles without revealing anything beautiful. John felt his eyes drooping in the face of so much dreariness.

“Sir?”

He woke with a start.

“Shall I close the hood, Sir?” the driver asked and just then did John feel that the dampness of the fog had been replaced by a light drizzle.

“Yes, of course.” He stood up to help the man.

“John Watson!”

Irritated, John interrupted his work and looked around to get his bearings. They were in Summer Street, and walking down the pathway from the church was Mr Lestrade.

“Good evening, I just stopped here to –” John began.

“Mr Watson,” the clergyman interrupted him. “Time’s scarce as I have to read mass in a few minutes, but do tell me where you have been hiding all the time!”

John flinched at the accusatory tone. “I… I had a lot to do. Preparations for another trip abroad.”

“Another tour? But you’ve barely arrived back home. Where are you going?”

“Greece,” John answered curtly.

“No! Greece? Italy is heroic, Greece on the other hand is either divine or diabolical, one never knows. Are you sure about that?”

“Yes… well…” John was becoming restless. If he did not manage to get away soon, the questioning would certainly become awkward.

“And why now? You’re getting married. Is the wedding postponed?”

John sighed. There it was, the feared embarrassment.

“Not exactly,” he said contritely. “It’s not going to take place at all.”

“What a relief!”

John frowned. Unsure how to react to the sudden enthusiasm, he recalled Cecilia’s words instead. “I’d be very thankful if you didn’t tell this to anybody,” he said.

“Your decision was right,” Mr Lestrade assured him. “Those who marry act wisely, those who don’t are even wiser. But Greece? What does your family say?”

“Charlotte will oversee the estates. Harriet is also cared for: Cecilia will be taking her to London.”

He answered the clergyman’s critical look with a rigorous shaking of his head. “It is her wish and I have to let her go. And no matter what people think, Cecilia is a good choice.”

 _Every other woman would have made me a scene and called me a hypocrite,_ John thought. That did not make the whole situation any less unpleasant so it was definitely the best solution to leave England, especially as this would mean that he could be sure to avoid meeting Sherlock.

Mr Lestrade sighed. “It’s going to be lonely around here for me, now that the Holmeses are also moving away. Only old aristocrats and chatty widows left. How sad.”

“The brothers are leaving Summer Street?” John asked, surprised.

“Didn’t you hear about it? The older one doesn’t want to live off their inheritance any longer, he’s drawn to the city again. By the way, he’s waiting in the rectory to bid me goodbye. Go inside, this is your last chance to see him. I’ll be back soon.”

“No, I...”

“Wait here,” Mr Lestrade told the driver and then lightly pushed John’s shoulder to make him move. They went towards the church and when the path to the house branched off, Mr Lestrade dismissed him.

“The door’s open.”

Slowly John proceeded towards the dark building. The man he once was would have never bowed out of such an obligation, so if he ever wanted to become that man again, he should finally act like him. The moment he crossed the threshold, though, and then saw the light shining through the cracked door to the parlour, he had to force himself to enter the room regardless.

“John. What a coincidence.”

Before John could say a word, Mycroft Holmes had jumped out of his seat.

“Mycroft.”

He looked different to the Sunday they had last met. Tired.

“John, I want to tell you that we’re sorry. Sherlock is sorry,” Mycroft said dejectedly. “He thought he had the right to try. I cannot condemn this, but I wish he had told me something in advance. He shouldn’t have tried it. Don’t condemn him.”

John was rooted to the spot, unable to form a sentence. _He knew it! Mycroft Holmes knew of Sherlock and him!_

“It was all our mother’s doing, God rest her soul. She taught him to believe in love. She told him: when you meet love, then this is reality. She said that passion doesn’t blind you. No. Passion is good judgement. The person you love will be the only one you’ll really understand.” He sighed. “I’m not sure, but perhaps it’s true, despite this outcome. Poor boy. I feel for him. He knew that it was madness, but…” his voice was becoming firmer again, “do you remember Italy?”

 _Italy._ Roused from his stupor by the word, John turned towards the bookcase and studied the spines. Commentaries on the Old Testament.

“I don’t want to discuss Italy or any other topic that concerns your brother,” he said towards the shelf. At least he had managed to keep a normal voice, but he could already feel his hands trembling. And what on earth was Mycroft talking about?

“But you remember it?”

“He has acted wrongly from the beginning on.”

“If I had known!” Mycroft exclaimed. “Only that Sunday after we played tennis did he tell me that he loves you. I… I could never understand people’s behaviour easily, but I suppose he was wrong.”

Staring at the volumes, John tried to process the impressions wreaking havoc with his mind. Why did Mycroft repeat this all the time? This was an affair. Love had nothing to do with it.

“He behaved abominably.” There it was again, his old self, but when John heard his voice resounding in the room, he cringed.

“Not abominably, John. He tried something he shouldn’t have tried. You in turn have what you want, you’ll marry the woman you love. Don’t let us part after you said that he behaved abominably.”

“No, no, certainly not,” John said guiltily. “Abominable is much too strong. I’m sorry, I –”

“Especially as the whole episode will destroy him.”

“Is he ill?” John turned around.

“No, no, he isn’t ill,” Mycroft reassured him, although his face showed the exact amount of worry than before. “Just lost. He’s like our mother: her beauty and her melancholia, he inherited both. Life didn’t mean anything to him. He lived, but it wasn’t worth the while to him. After you left Florence – horrible. Then we moved here and he went swimming with you. Did you see him swimming? Suddenly everything was good again, after all that time.”

“Mycroft, stop it, please, there is no use in talking about this. The whole matter distresses me considerably.”

“He also said something about a novel,” Mycroft continued, “but I don’t remember all the details. I know that I’m too old to understand him – it’s my greatest defect. Tomorrow Sherlock will come and take me to his London flat. He can’t stay here and I have to be where he is.”

“Don’t move away from here!” John exclaimed. “You always loved nature. And what is Charlotte going to say? What about Mr Lestrade? Don’t leave on behalf of me, I’ll go to Greece. You should stay.”

“I have to go with Sherlock. It’s my duty to make sure he wants to live, and it’s impossible for him around here. Just the thought of seeing you or hearing about you, it’s unbearable. I don’t want to justify his deeds, I’m simply recounting what happened. But what did you say? Greece? Because of us? Oh no!” He sank back into the chair. “We deserve sorrow.”

John looked at the books again – black, brown, a dark blue. How fitting.

“Greece,” the elder Holmes murmured. “Didn’t you want to get married next year?”

“I did.” John balled his hands to fists. If Mycroft asked him, he would not lie, not after trying to start with a clean slate.

“Then Miss Vyse will accompany you?”

Silence. _No more lies,_ John ordered himself.

“No.” His voice sounded throaty but at least he had been able to say it.

“You’re leaving… _him_?”

John cast down his eyes. “I have to.”

Before John could react, Mycroft Holmes had leaped to his feet again and when he grabbed John by his shoulders, he staggered backwards by the impact of the hands.

“Why, John?”

“In what kind of world do you live?” Trying to wrench free, John had to concede that his chances were slim, as firmly as the other man clutched him – like his whole existence depended on it.

“John, life is difficult, but there’s more to it. A friend once told me that life is a violin concert during which one has to learn the instrument.”

Briefly John thought that he was being released but instead, Mycroft bent down and fixed him with his gaze. “This is what I meant. It is love, John, and therefore you won’t marry. Because of him.”

“Stop saying that,” John ground out and Mycroft let go of him. “This was... an affair, nothing else.”

He felt his heart race. _Just an affair,_ he affirmed himself, because everything else was madness. It would mean that he had not only desired Sherlock, that it had not been a fling or a weakness.

No, he had not loved.

John clenched his teeth. It could not be, and he would not allow it. No matter how imploringly Mycroft now looked at him.

“What difference does it make _what_ this was?” he hissed and stumbled to the door. “There is no future for us.”

“Such nonsense!” Mycroft snorted. “Look at life and how rarely love is returned. This is one of those moments for which we exist.”

“This is not about me, it’s about all the people who trust me...”

“Why should they trust you when you’re lying to them?” Mycroft asked. “Truth, John, you have to fight for it, at least for yourself.”

How could this man completely disregard the fact that it was hopeless? There was no place for truth in their lives.

Without another word, John stormed out of the room. He ran down the path, his vision blurred and his senses dulled. Night had fallen and just with great effort he managed to stay on his feet while staggering towards the weak light of the street lamps.

“Sir?”

The voice of the coachman somewhere in the periphery of his mind, John eventually became aware of the fact that he had climbed into the carriage, dumbly staring at his own legs.

“Windy Corner, Sir?”

“Yes,” he replied automatically. He would finally go to a place where he felt at home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to snogandagrope, terribly OOC Mycroft was made into, well, tolerably OOC Mycroft. I got lost in the novel and she showed me the way out.


	11. A Room with a View

_Dear Mr Watson,_

_It was a great pleasure to learn that you plan to join me on my journey. Nothing speaks against it but the fact that I will predominantly spend my time in spas, which might not offer much diversion for the young. Despite my delight in having a travel companion, I cannot help being surprised that you want to leave England so quickly after your return. What I thought was cunning castling did not do you the favour I hoped it would after all, but this is how life goes, as unfortunately it is not a novel. So although I had envisioned a different ending, I hope it is not a scandal that forces you from your home._

_Rest assured that I can empathise with your situation as once I acted just like you. In that moment, though, when I passed up the chance of happiness, I would have appreciated someone to show me what I was losing, because one thing I can say with utter conviction: I have regretted my decision ever since._

_Yours, Charles Lavish_

Sherlock lowered the letter, resting his elbow on the window sill.

“Was this the reason?”

He turned towards John who needed a while to form a sentence, and not just because he was distracted by those eyes that reflected the blue of the sky in an almost surreal way.

“One of them, yes,” he hedged, leaning a bit more out of the small window and into the shimmering heat. Below him people ambled along the sea front of Loutra Edipsou, withstanding the early afternoon sun. Squinting, John tried to focus on the dazzling white of the buildings but it was too bright, so he directed his gaze to the turquoise sea.

It was not the time to talk about the meeting with Mycroft, he decided. Sherlock had not brought it up either, so perhaps he did not know about it, and at the moment John was glad that they had not discussed the incident in the rectory. Once they reached that stage, there would be no way around recounting what had happened upon his return to Windy Corner.

John studied the glittering surface of the sea that always succeeded in calming him down.

Peace. Just what he had tried to force on Sherlock and himself by the separation, but it had been Mycroft to show him the ludicrousness of that idea.

That evening, though, after the flight from the rectory, this realisation had not reassured him but left him with the overwhelming wish to crawl away into something he could feel secure in. And he had to accept the fact that this could not be Windy Corner.

After putting down his purchases in the hallway and scribbling a note for Harriet, he had made a small detour to his drawing room and from then all he remembered was the feeling of the big key in his hand. The path, the rain – he would never be able to reconstruct how he had managed to cover the distance to the old cottage.

Perceiving everything through a mist, he had reached the house and managed to enter it, and the next thing he remembered was waking up on the straw mattress the following day, damp and shaking with cold. He could not move away from it regardless, and had stayed there, rolled up, until his former selfhad slowly got the upper hand and made him return to Windy Corner.

Although he had tried his best to explain his absence, Charlotte and Harriet had been out of their minds with worry, pressed him to eat and drink tea, and even wanted to call for a doctor. To avoid this, John had gone to bed, but from the moment he had buried himself under his quilt, his will to do anything had left him completely.

The doctor came and went away again. John had barely realised his presence and he continued vegetating in his room, convinced that he would never leave it again – but then the letter arrived.

“Yes, I think that it was also because of what Charles wrote,” John said and exchanged the blue of the sea against Sherlock’s eyes once more. The letter had shown him that no one but himself could end his suffering.

John stood on tiptoe to briefly glance down the three floors below their window and then moved a step back. It was a piece of luck that they had moved into the flat under the roof because it meant that there would be no view into their rooms.

“Was there anything else that changed your mind?”

John smiled. Of course Sherlock had paid attention to his words. Yet there were better things to do than talk about the past. Much better things that should never be postponed again. Purposefully John knelt down, stroking Sherlock’s crotch with practised ease.

“Your attempts at changing the topic are rather obvious,” Sherlock remarked. “I don’t think...”

His voice trailed off when John opened the trousers, and he instead gave a gasp when his member was freed.

 _A work of art that’s a lot more exciting to look at than the tons of ruins we’ve seen so far,_ John thought amusedly and drew back the foreskin. With his tongue, he circled around the edge of the glans that was quickly filling with blood, and he was sure that Sherlock’s eloquence would be damaged considerably from now on.

“It is... striking that you consistently...” he managed before John moistened his lips and appreciatively sucked in the smooth tip of the hardening penis. Despite his abandon, John could not stifle a smirk.

“Especially in the sleeping compartment to Rome… that was risky,” Sherlock said, making use of the short pause. John let go of his object of admiration to look up.

“I had barricaded the door.” Not missing a beat, he resumed his initial task, tracing every groove and each vein with his tongue, playing with pressure and friction until he heard strained panting.

 _Sherlock is right. Since I first tasted him like that, I could not resist any opportunity to repeat this. But why?_ John asked himself.

He closed his lips around the shaft yet another time and swallowed as much of the length as was possible for him, only to release it again with an almost kiss.

What an idiotic question. He could not get enough of anything that involved Sherlock. Smiling to himself, John stuffed the hardness back into the underwear and buttoned up the fly.

_And an awful long time it took me to realise that._

Ignoring Sherlock’s questioning eyes, he stood up and stepped back from the window.

“Where is Charles?” John wanted to know.

“Gone to the thermal baths,” Sherlock replied, arranging his still visible hardness. He shot John a stern look.

“Well, then arrange for some privacy, please,” John asked him and Sherlock’s countenance lit up. He pushed himself off the window sill to close the window. With a fluent gesture, he also drew the curtains together.

“Or was it this here that convinced you in the end?”

 _So the topic is not done with,_ John sighed inwardly, before he let himself be mesmerised by the display that would undoubtedly put him under its spell like so many times before. Already the first glimpse at a patch of that pale skin, back then in the Bertolini, had been enough to brand itself in his memory. And now that Sherlock’s face and arms had tanned it seemed that the sun had signed the skin to make it even more irresistible.      

That sight? One of the reasons? What the fingers revealed after they had made short work of the buttons and clothes a cause for his change of mind?

 _I’d be the greatest liar in history if I denied that,_ John thought. It had never let go of him, the picture of the lean body and the irresistible lips, and it had been evoked by a myriad of absurd triggers, from the needle covered ground in the woods to the print of St John in his study.

And it had definitely been present the moment he had fabricated a reason to get Sherlock’s address in London from Sir Harry.

Smiling, John looked at the slender figure leaning against the wall, erection jutting like a lewd hello.

Yes, it was true. Had always been. And when Sherlock had yanked him into the flat and clutched him tightly, his body just an indication through layers of clothes, John knew that he would never be able to let him go again.

John reached out his hand to feel what he would have loved to touch the day of their reunion in London, but back then he had been too anxious to tell Sherlock about his plan at last. What if he had said no?

He did not. Instead Sherlock had just listened and nodded and in the end sent him on his way with the request to return to the flat the day before they left for Greece. John had not been able to make a lot of sense of it. Bewildered and insanely excited at the same time he had followed Sherlock’s instruction, returned to the door some days later, knocked and just like the first time he had been pulled inside the flat rigorously.

And then? John could not exactly recall what had happened; that a key had been turned and a dressing gown suddenly disappeared; that, spellbound, he had observed the naked man walk down the hallway and disappear in a room, and just as out of his mind he had followed him. From then on it had been utter frenzy.

Embarrassed, John cringed at the memory.

“I’m sorry I was such a novice,” he said with a grin that earned him a whimsically raised eyebrow.

“You’re not any more.”

Sherlock glanced down his body surreptitiously and as if he was obeying the silent invitation, John grabbed the manhood to slowly stroke it.

 _No, for the most part I am not a beginner,_ John admitted to himself. It did not make their encounter in London a less awkward memory, though.

But what had Sherlock been thinking waiting for him like that! Only able to open his trousers before burying his hardness in that enticing tightness, it had taken John just seconds until his desire reached its peak and he spilled himself in the other man – but there had also been a good side to his weakness.

When he had recovered his wits, he had tasted Sherlock for the first time, and since then he could barely contain himself whenever occasion arose. Simply the memory of the bitter flavour on his tongue…

Rousing himself from the thoughts wandering off to unbidden realms, John tried to concentrate on the silken tissue he massaged, the hardness underneath, and unhurriedly he let his eyes trail along the shoulder in his direct view.

“You know it is impossible to resist you,” John said distractedly.

“There’s time enough to prove it,” the baritone growled by John ear, startling him out of his musings.

“I will.” The words had left his mouth without him consciously making the decision. Braver than he felt, John established eye contact, yet he did not need to wait long until he saw understanding flit over Sherlock’s face. However successfully Sherlock hid his emotions occasionally, John could almost touch the desire coursing through him, see the blood pumping through his veins.

“Only if you really want it.”

“Yes, I... I do.”

More was not necessary to send the fingers deftly to work and open buttons. John closed his eyes, revelling in the feeling of constricting clothes being removed from his body. He could not repress his nervousness entirely, though, and was slightly overwhelmed by his sudden decision, but Sherlock would remedy that. At one point, he would have dealt with the clothes and then there was leisure for a kiss again, _the kiss_ , like in the barley field – or like during that last evening in London.

Contented that he had glossed over his haste, John had observed the result of his doing. The quickly rising ribcage, sweat creeping into the hairline of the forehead – all of it proof of his triumph. The taste of the semen still lingering, John had the slight impression that the man’s very essence was intoxicating him, as strangely befuddled as he felt.

And then his gaze had been caught by those eyes that always looked at him as if he was the centre of the universe, but they could not explain the glorious inner turmoil like the lips. A gentle pull on John’s arm was enough to make him bridge the remaining gap. Bring them together as close as they were now in the sweltering heat of the room.

For the gentle groping of the mouth John left his memories, yet he could not escape them entirely, because just like they did now, the lips had also started their journey in London. As if it had been the first time and Sherlock could still not believe it was happening.

Unlike then, there was no languid afterglow; now the tongues’ soft sliding was allowed to get bolder, the warmth of the early afternoon quickly producing a thin film of sweat on Sherlock’s skin. Translating the kiss with his entire body, Sherlock rubbed every inch against John, who only realised that they had been moving towards the bed when he was already pressed down on it.

Somewhere in the periphery of his dazed consciousness, John heard the noise of the drawer. Sherlock shifted imperceptibly before a slick hand encircled John’s hardness, decommissioning the last remaining vestiges of sanity. Giving in to the slippery movements easing their way further down his scrotum after only briefly stimulating the shaft, John had no time to object the awkward pose he ended up in when Sherlock flexed John’s leg to get better access.

“Are you sure?” John heard, but he was beyond couching anything in words, too sublime was the hand’s path down his testicles. All he could do was to make sure the arousing trail of the fingers met no obstacles, instructing his legs and hips to shift and roll and allow the oily touches to reach every crevice they wanted to explore.

The massage of his entrance became a slight probing, yet the instant the tight muscle was penetrated, John’s instinctive alarm was eased by the renewed attention the other hand gave his hardness.

Similar to the tongue when they kissed, now the finger explored the confines of the body’s orifice to find the perfect place that would make John lose control. Before he could get used to the intrusion though, another digit followed, and a third, almost overtaxing John’s brain with conflicting extremes of sensations. The uncomfortable stretching and the wiggling fingers that were just too right – motionless he remained, braving the onslaught of feelings, until Sherlock’s voice rasped a quiet plea.

“I... I can’t wait any longer. John...?” it whispered, prompting John to focus again. He just blinked, unable to utter an answer, but this seemed to be enough for the other man. A forceful grip, then a push and John landed on his belly. Yanked to his knees, the tip of the penis pressing against his opening the next second, John was relieved to realise that Sherlock nevertheless managed to slow down a little.

Tentatively, the outer barrier was penetrated and the hardness advanced, the amounting pressure causing John to shift away from it.

“Trust me, please,” Sherlock ground out, and John heard self-restriction grating his voice. So he forced himself to brave the intrusion, a helping hand around his manhood taking his mind off the novel feeling. Patience, he needed just a little more patience until the organ in him found it again, the place that made him combust with want.

“Oh God, yes,” John hissed the moment it happened. Cautious shoves, nimble fingers simultaneously working his foreskin – and with overwhelming vehemence Sherlock wrenched the command over his body from John.

Clenching his teeth John desperately tried to avoid falling then and there. This time, he would not give another example of his inexperience, although everything in him screamed to abandon all restraint.

With satisfaction he heard Sherlock bite back his groans. He was also nearing completion, but only when John was sure that the other man was hovering on the brink just like he was, did he surrender to the increasingly powerful strokes and the friction of the hand. He gave up his fight against the urgent pull in his groin and let his body speak, so that the massive need that made him frantic with raging desire stopped already. And the second it did, John expected to be annihilated, as perfect and incessant the tremors travelled through him.

The rest of his juices still spreading over the clever hands, John heard Sherlock losing control with a grateful moan he could not stifle, felt the hands grab his buttocks and delve into them, and he would have given anything to see how Sherlock emptied himself. Almost thinking that he could feel the warmth inside, John heard Sherlock gasp for air, minute strokes announcing the end of the unchecked movements. With a sigh, the hands relinquished their hold, caressing John’s back instead until the softening penis slipped out.

Feeling positively drained, John collapsed on the mattress and patiently endured the gaze of the man who was still sitting on his heels, wiping his fingers on the crumpled sheet with feigned thoroughness.

 _Why have I waited so long for this?_ John asked himself. He huffed out a laugh, eliciting a wondering expression on Sherlock’s face that vanished the moment John gave him a smile.

 _The question is rather why I have waited so long for almost everything_. But there he was, right in front of him, the reward for all the years of self-neglect.

“We’re not very presentable travel companions of an aged author,” John remarked with a smirk. Sherlock plunked down on the bed.

“We did formidably till now. And it doesn’t matter what we have to show the world to be safe from it. One day we’ll find a place where we can shout out our passion without being afraid. It’s our fate to be together.”

Sceptically John looked at the man who, going by his confident demeanour, did not expect any objection to his statement. For Sherlock it was easy, John thought to himself, there was only Mycroft he had to answer to.

 _If it just were that easy with me._ John reached out and combed through the dark curls. It had been difficult enough to write to his sister and Charlotte about Sherlock’s presence. A strange coincidence, John had called it. Was it not the oddest twist of fate that the guests of the Pensione Bertolini should be united again so quickly?

What Harriet and Charlotte had thought of his explanation? John did not know and he pushed away any thought of it. If they had their suspicions, they did not voice them. Yet perhaps, deep inside, they were aware of what he himself had to learn at quite a cost.

“There is no fate,” John said with conviction. Because Charles had been right. All that counted was the will to live, _really live_ , and this was enough to show them the way.   

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing fanfic based on a classic? Hubris? Yes, especially when you're a German. Thanks to snogandagrope's great betaing and editing, and the skills of everybody's favourite britpicker CrackshotKate, the fic's become a real story, and I'm incredibly indebted to them.


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